<s« 


JAN  10   19T5 


& 


««l 


AL 


The  Mystery  Religions  and 
The  New  Testament  


V 


r." 


NOV  15  191P 


By 


HENRY  C.  SHELDON 

Professor  in  Boston  University 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
HENRY  C.  SHELDON 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 7 

CHAPTER  I 

A  Glance  at  the  Characteristic  Features 
of    the    Mystery  Religions 9 

CHAPTER  II 

Some  Special  Phases  in  the  Content  or  His- 
tory of  the  Mystery  Religions 39 

CHAPTER  III 

Distinctive  Points  in  Which  the  Mystery 
Religions  Show  Agreement  or  Contrast 
with  Christianity 57 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Question  of  Paul's  Indebtedness  to 
the  Mystery  Religions  for  Characteristic 
Terms  and  Ideas 72 

CHAPTER  V 

The  Question  of  Paul's  Indebtedness  to 
the  Mystery  Religions  for  His  Concep- 
tions of  Baptism  and  the  Eucharist 100 

5 


6  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  Question  op  the  Indebtedness  op  the 
Johannine  Writings,  and  op  Other  Por- 
tions op  the  New  Testament,  to  the  Mys- 
tery Religions 131 

Conclusion 154 


PREFACE 

This  book  has  been  written,  not 
for  the  small  class  of  experts,  but 
for  the  large  class  of  those  who  are 
likely  to  appreciate  a  compact  exposi- 
tion of  a  prominent  theme  in  New 
Testament  criticism.  We  respect,  how- 
ever, the  function  of  the  experts,  and 
venture  to  cherish  the  hope  that  of 
those  among  them  who  may  chance 
to  look  into  this  little  treatise  a  fair 
proportion  may  be  able  to  approve 
its  tenor. 


CHAPTER  I 

A  GLANCE  AT  THE  CHARACTER- 
ISTIC  FEATURES  OF  THE  MYS- 
TERY RELIGIONS 

The  general  conception  underlying 
the  term  "Mystery,"  as  used  in  this 
connection,  has  been  very  well  ex- 
pressed in  the  following  sentences: 
"The  word  Mystery  was  the  name 
of  a  religious  society,  founded  not  on 
citizenship  or  kindred,  but  on  the 
choice  of  its  members,  for  the  practice 
of  rites  by  which,  it  was  believed, 
their  happiness  might  be  promoted 
both  in  this  world  and  in  the  next. 
The  Greek  word  [ivotYipiov  does  not, 
of  its  own  force,  imply  anything,  in 
our  sense  of  the  word  'mysterious/ 
that  is  to  say,  obscure  or  difficult  to 
comprehend.    That  which  it  connotes 

9 


10  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

is,  rather,  something  which  can  only 
be  known  on  being  imparted  by  some 
one  already  in  possession  of  it,  not 
by  mere  reason  and  research  which 
are  common  to  all."1  Thus  the  Mys- 
tery stood  for  a  knowledge  and  a 
benefit  that  were  accessible  only  by 
way  of  initiation.  The  one  who  had 
been  initiated  was  considered  under 
very  imperative  bonds  of  secrecy.  His 
obligation,  however,  to  maintain  si- 
lence concerned  less  the  general  sig- 
nificance of  the  Mystery  than  its 
ceremonial  details. 

In  a  full  account  of  the  Mystery 
Religions  notice  would  need  to  be 
taken  of  the  cult  of  Ishtar  and  Tam- 
muz.  But  as  our  survey  pertains 
only  to  such  religious  types  as  had  an 
opportunity  to  impinge  upon  early 
Christianity  on  the  theater  of  the 
Grseco-Roman  world,  a  specific  dealing 
with   the   Babylonian   cult   is   hardly 

1  S.  Cheetham,  The  Mysteries  Pagan  and  Christian,  pp.  40,  41. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  11 

in  place,  though  a  reference  to  it  as 
an  influential  antecedent  may  be  quite 
pertinent.  Of  direct  concern  are 
the  Graeco-Thracian  Mysteries,  hav- 
ing their  principal  seat  at  Eleusis, 
and  associated  in  particular  with  De- 
meter,  Persephone,  and  Dionysos;  those 
of  Cybele  and  Attis  in  Phrygia;  of 
Aphrodite  and  Adonis  in  Syria;  of 
Isis,  Osiris,  and  Serapis  originating  in 
Egypt;  and  of  Mithra,  primarily  con- 
nected with  Persia  and  spreading 
thence  in  the  Roman  empire.  In 
addition  to  these  it  is  appropriate  to 
take  note  of  certain  types  of  religious 
thought  and  endeavor  which  were  in 
close  affinity  with  the  standpoint  of 
the  Mystery  Religions.  Here,  with- 
out doubt,  are  to  be  included  Orphism 
and  the  scheme  represented  in  the 
Hermetic  writings.  Some  consider  that 
it  is  appropriate  to  bring  into  con- 
sideration the  teaching  of  Posidonius, 
who  figured   at   Rhodes  in  the  first 


12  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

half  of  the  century  preceding  the 
birth  of  Christianity,  and  who,  along 
with  a  certain  degree  of  adherence 
to  the  Stoic  philosophy,  combined  much 
of  an  eclectic  temper.  It  is  claimed 
also  that  an  incipient  Gnosticism,  in- 
debted not  a  little  for  spirit  and 
content  to  the  Mystery  Religions, 
was  already  in  the  field  when  Chris- 
tianity began  its  mission.  Note  is 
taken  of  the  fact  that  the  knowl- 
edge (yv&Gtg),  which  was  the  boast 
of  the  Gnostic  sects,  was  referred 
rather  to  mystical  relationships  and 
transcendent  communications  than  to 
the  labored  procedures  of  scholarship 
and  science. 

In  connection  with  the  Mystery 
Religions  as  a  class,  it  is  important 
to  recognize  the  serious  limitations 
which  are  imposed  upon  our  knowl- 
edge. "The  study  of  the  antique 
Mysteries,"  says  De  Jong,  "is  ex- 
tremely   difficult,    since   we    have    at 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  13 

our  disposal  only  fragmentary  and 
often  very  scanty  material."2  "Per- 
haps no  loss/'  remarks  Cumont, 
"caused  by  the  general  wreck  of 
ancient  literature  has  been  more  dis- 
astrous than  that  of  the  liturgic  books 
of  paganism.  A  few  mystic  formulas 
quoted  incidentally  by  pagan  or  Chris- 
tian authors  and  a  few  fragments  of 
hymns  in  honor  of  the  gods  are  prac- 
tically all  that  escaped  destruction.  .  .  . 
The  treatises  on  mythology  that  have 
been  preserved  deal  almost  entirely 
with  the  ancient  Hellenic  fables  made 
famous  by  the  classic  writers,  to  the 
neglect  of  the  Oriental  religions.  There 
is  no  period  of  the  Roman  empire 
concerning  which  we  are  so  little 
informed  as  the  third  century,  pre- 
cisely the  one  during  which  the  Ori- 
ental religions  reached  the  apogee  of 
their  power."3     No  one  of  these  re- 


2  Das  Antike  Mysterienwesen,  p.  4. 

3  The  Oriental  Religions  'n  Roman  Paganism,  pp.  11-14. 


14  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

ligions  has  bequeathed  a  complete 
liturgy  or  ritual.  An  enthusiastic  de- 
scription of  certain  scenes  pertaining 
to  the  initiation  into  the  Mysteries 
of  Isis,  as  contained  in  the  Meta- 
morphoses of  Apuleius,  a  writer  of 
the  second  century,  is  perhaps  as  note- 
worthy as  anything  which  has  been 
furnished  on  this  subject.  Albrecht 
Dieterich,  it  is  true,  has  claimed  that 
in  the  content  of  a  Paris  papyrus  we 
have  a  substantially  complete  liturgy 
of  Mithraism.4  But  Cumont  and 
others  have  challenged  the  legitimacy 
of  the  identification.  It  would  seem, 
therefore,  that  the  specified  document 
offers  a  very  insecure  foundation  to 
build  upon. 

This  fragmentary  character  of  the 
sources  of  information  evidently  en- 
forces the  need  of  caution  against 
indulging  in  over-broad  and  ill-founded 
inductions.     It  is  possible  for  a  re- 

*  Eilie  Mithrasliturgie,  1903. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  15 

viewer  to  be  tempted  to  gather  up 
the  scattered  hints  derivable  from  the 
several  Mystery  Religions  and  then 
to  apply  them  collectively  to  one 
or  another  of  these  religions,  thus 
assigning  to  it  a  larger  and  more 
definite  content  than  is  warrantable. 
A  suspicion  that  recent  scholarship 
has  not  wholly  escaped  this  tempta- 
tion easily  intrudes  itself.  "There  is 
undoubtedly/ '  writes  Maurice  Jones, 
"a  tendency  among  the  students  of 
these  cults  to  erect  a  building  out 
of  material  that  is  wholly  inadequate 
for  the  purpose,  and  to  counterbalance 
their  lack  of  genuine  matter  by  in- 
serting their  own  hypotheses."5 

On  the  question  of  the  period  and 
province  of  the  Mysteries  it  is  to 
be  noted  that  those  of  Eleusis  were 
started  at  an  early  point  m  the  his- 
tory of  Greece.    The  cult  of  Demeter,. 

6  The  New  Testament  in  the  Twentieth  Century,  p.  138. 


16  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

which  was  central  to  them,  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  current  in  Attica 
as  early  as  the  eleventh  century  before 
Christ;6  and,  while  a  considerable 
period  may  have  elapsed  before  the 
scheme  at  Eleusis  was  relatively  ma- 
tured, it  had  doubtless  been  a  factor 
in  Greek  religion  for  centuries  prior 
to  the  culmination  of  Attic  civiliza- 
tion. In  respect  of  their  sphere  these 
Mysteries  were  limited  by  the  require- 
ment that  their  celebration  should 
take  place  at  Eleusis  and  by  the 
exclusion  of  the  possibility  of  initiation 
elsewhere.  On  this  score  they  were 
placed  at  a  disadvantage  as  compared 
with  various  rivals  in  the  Grseco- 
Roman  world.  For,  whatever  local 
associations  they  may  have  had,  the 
Mysteries  generally  were  free  to  gather 
groups  of  devotees  in  any  quarter. 
At  a  comparatively  early  date  they 
began  to  invade  the  West.     "First, 

0  Foucart,  Les  Mystdres  d'Eleusis,  p.  249. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  17 

there  was  a  slow  infiltration  of  despised 
exotic  religions,  then  toward  the  end 
of  the  first  century  the  Orontes,  the 
Nile,  and  the  Halys,  to  use  the  words 
of  Juvenal,  flowed  into  the  Tiber  to 
the  great  indignation  of  the  Romans. 
Finally  a  hundred  years  later  an  in- 
flux of  Egyptian,  Semitic,  and  Persian 
beliefs  and  customs  took  place  that 
threatened  to  submerge  all  that  Greek 
and  Roman  genius  had  laboriously 
built  up."7  The  Cult  of  Cybele  was 
represented  in  Rome  as  early  as  B.  C. 
204.  Under  the  empire  it  obtained 
considerable  patronage  in  the  West. 
In  the  Greek  states  it  received  only 
a  scanty  welcome.  The  cult  of  Isis 
and  of  the  related  Egyptian  divinities 
had  begun  to  take  root  in  Greece  and 
southern  Italy  in  the  third  century 
before  Christ.  At  Rome  it  was  dis- 
countenanced by  the  early  emperors, 


7  Cumont.  The  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism,  p.  23. 


18  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

distinct  attempts  to  drive  it  out  being 
made  by  Augustus  and  Tiberius.  But 
their  successors  did  not  follow  their 
example.  Otho  was  openly  favorable 
to  the  Egyptian  priests  and  rites,  as 
was  also  Domitian.  From  the  end  of 
the  first  century  the  cult  of  Isis  won 
an  ever-increasing  company  of  adher- 
ents till  the  culmination  of  its  influence 
in  the  early  part  of  the  third  century.8 
Mithraism  secured  but  few  converts 
in  the  Hellenic  domain.  It  was  repre- 
sented at  Rome  as  early  as  B.  C.  67, 
but  gained  no  appreciable  foothold 
till  the  closing  decades  of  the  next 
century.  In  the  second  and  third 
Christian  centuries  it  was  given  a 
wide  extension  in  the  region  stretch- 
ing from  the  Caspian  Sea  to  Italy  and 
the  Eastern  part  of  Gaul.  Being  to 
a  peculiar  degree  the  religion  of  sol- 
diers,   it    was    carried    wherever    the 


8  Lafaye,  Histoire   du  Cultes  des  Divinitfes  d'Alexandrie,  pp. 
24-63. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  19 

Roman  legions  were  sent,  and  was 
furthermore  propagated  by  slaves  from 
the  East  and  by  Syrian  merchants. 
The  Emperor  Commodus  (A.  D.  180- 
192)  became  an  adherent,  and  various 
of  his  successors  regarded  it  with 
favor.  The  climax  of  its  progress  was 
probably  reached  toward  the  end  of 
the  third  century.  Julian  the  Apostate 
beyond  the  middle  of  the  next  cen- 
tury exerted  himself  to  the  utmost 
to  restore  its  fortunes,  but  his 
short-lived  reaction  (361-363)  availed 
little  to  check  the  movement  toward 
irretrievable  downfall.  The  Orphic 
brotherhoods  were  an  appreciable  fac- 
tor in  the  Greek  domain,  including 
Southern  Italy,  from  the  sixth  cen- 
tury before  Christ.  The  Hermetic 
literature  in  its  extant  form  was  not 
earlier  than  the  second  century  of 
our  era.  It  is  supposed,  however, 
that  it  incorporated  ways  of  thinking 
that  had  been  operative  at  an  earlier 


20  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

date.9  How  widely  it  became  current 
is  not  clearly  determined.  Reitzen- 
stein's  conclusion  that  it  represented 
a  typical  form  of  the  piety  of  the 
second  and  third  centuries  has  been 
challenged  by  Cumont  and  others.10 
From  the  tenor  of  its  content  it  is 
natural  to  conclude  that  its  patronage 
was  limited,  for  the  most  part,  to  the 
more  speculative  minds  whose  ad- 
herence to  the  classic  faiths  had  be- 
come little  else  than  nominal.  After 
its  contact  with  Christianity  Gnos- 
ticism became,  especially  in  the  sec- 


9  Professor  E.  D.  Burton,  after  noting  diverse  views  as  to  the 
date  of  the  Hermetic  writings,  adds  this  statement:  "To  affirm 
that  they  influenced  New  Testament  usage  would  be  hazardous, 
but  they  perhaps  throw  some  light  on  the  direction  in  wnich 
thought  was  moving  in  New  Testament  times"  (American  Journal 
of  Theology,  October,  1916,  p.  566).  J.  M.  Creed  reviews  the 
data  presented  by  Reitzenstein  and  draws  this  conclusion:  "The 
bulk  of  the  Hermetic  writings  were  probably  written  in  the  third 
century  or  not  earlier  than  the  end  of  the  second  century"  (Journal 
of  Theological  Studies,  July,  1914).  G.  R.  S.  Mead  concludes 
that  some  of  these  documents  "are  at  least  contemporaneous 
with  the  earliest  writings  of  Christianity"  (Thrice-Greatest 
Hermes,  III,  323). 

10  Cumont,  The  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism,  pp.  233, 
234;  Astrology  and  Religion  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  pp. 
76,  77;  Kennedy,  St.  Paul  and  the  Mystery  Religions,  pp.  Ill,  112. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  21 

ond  century,  a  widely  disseminated 
phenomenon.  In  the  pre-Christian 
stage  it  existed  more  extensively  in 
the  unorganized  form  of  congenial 
materials  than  in  the  character  of 
specific  sects,  though  there  were  some 
parties  to  whom  that  designation  might 
properly  be  applied. 

In  respect  of  the  sources  from  which 
the  several  Mystery  Religions  drew 
their  materials  opinion  is  not  unan- 
imous. Two  things,  however,  may  be 
regarded  as  established.  In  the  first 
place,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the 
Babylonian  story  of  Ishtar  and  Tam- 
muz  wrought  in  some  degree  for  the 
production  of  kindred  representations 
in  Syria  and  Asia  Minor,  and  it  is 
possible  that  through  these  channels 
it  may  have  touched  religious  thought 
in  Greece.  In  the  second  place,  it 
cannot  fairly  be  questioned  that  the 
cults   which   reached   to   wide   limits 


22  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

in  the  Roman  empire,  like  those  of 
Isis  and  Mithra,  ultimately  incorpo- 
rated materials  from  various  sources, 
so  that  they  became  in  a  rather 
emphatic  sense  syncretistic.  There  is 
good  reason  also  for  concluding  that 
Orphism  was  open  in  the  course  of 
its  development  to  the  introduction 
of  new  elements,  standing  in  this 
respect  somewhat  in  contrast  with  the 
relatively  fixed  character  of  the  Eleu- 
sinian  Mysteries.  On  the  relation  of 
both  to  Egyptian  antecedents  con- 
trasted views  have  been  expressed. 
Foucart  has  argued  very  earnestly 
for  the  distinct  and  large  indebtedness 
of  the  Eleusinian  rites  to  those  of 
Isis;  indeed,  he  makes  the  former  no 
more  than  a  Hellenic  version  of  the 
latter.11  Farnell,  on  the  other  hand, 
rejects  the  idea  of  radical  influence 
from  the  Egyptian  quarter.12    Foucart 

11  Les  Mysteres  d'Eleusis. 

12  The   Higher  Aspects   of   the  Greek  Religion.     Compare   De 
Jong,  pp.  53,  54. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  23 

has  also  drawn  the  conclusion  that 
Orphism  borrowed,  especially  through 
the  medium  of  Pythagoras,  quite 
largely  from  Egyptian  sources.  On 
the  other  side  Maass  asserts  the  con- 
viction that  the  Orphic  religion  "is  in 
essence  national-Hellenic."13  For  our 
purpose  it  is  not  necessary  to  pro- 
nounce on  the  disputed  points.  We 
see  no  reason  why  an  intermediate 
view  may  not  be  eligible. 

Viewed  in  their  general  cast,  the 
Mysteries  appear  rather  as  the  affair 
of  voluntary  brotherhoods  than  as 
state  institutions.  Their  status  was 
very  much  like  that  of  the  early 
Christian  societies.  There  were  some, 
however,  that  claimed  a  definite  po- 
litical relation.  From  the  seventh 
century  before  Christ  the  Eleusinian 
Mysteries  were  under  the  direct  pat- 
ronage of  Athens,  and  the  Samothra- 

13  Orpheus,  Untersuchung  zu  Griechischen,  Romischen,  Altchrist- 
lichen  Jenseitsdichtung  und  Religion- 


U  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

cian  also  were  accorded  state  recog- 
nition. The  Ptolemies  in  Egypt  were 
active  patrons  of  the  cult  of  Serapis, 
but  their  jurisdiction  covered  only  a 
fraction  of  the  area  over  which  this 
form  of  Egyptian  religion  gathered  its 
groups  of  worshipers. 

'It  is  the  common  verdict  of  those 
who  have  written  upon  the  subject 
of  the  Mysteries  that  they  offered  to 
their  votaries  no  considerable  body 
of  either  moral  or  metaphysical  in- 
struction. A  modicum  of  moral  im- 
pression may  have  been  ministered  by 
them;  but  of  moral  indoctrination 
nothing  worthy  of  note.14  The  state- 
ment of  Aristotle  respecting  the  trans- 
actions at  Eleusis,  "they  give  only 
impressions/ '  may  be  regarded  as  an 

14  At  Eleusis  the  homicide  was  rejected  as  also  the  professor 
of  unhallowed  rites.  "Otherwise  there  seem  to  have  been  no 
definite  moral  demands  upon  the  candidates.  They  were  not 
redeemed  from  any  sinful  ways.  No  pattern  of  conduct  was  held 
up  before  them;  nor  was  the  nature  of  the  future  life  made  clear" 
(J.  Estlin  Carpenter,  Phases  of  Early  Christianity,  p.  217). 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  25 

authentic  description  of  the  Mysteries 
generally.  It  is  indeed  granted  that 
Orphism  developed  an  appreciable  body 
of  teaching,  and  that  in  the  mysti- 
cal Hermetic  literature  the  doctrinal 
element,  though  not  strictly  uniform 
or  self-consistent,  was  by  no  means 
wanting.  There  is  no  hesitation,  how- 
ever, in  the  verdict  that  the  liturgical, 
the  scenic,  and  the  spectacular,  rather 
than  the  formally  didactic,  were  in 
general  characteristic  of  the  Mysteries^ 
They  included  rites  of  ablution;  they 
emphasized  the  main  features  in  the 
mythological  stories  of  the  divinities 
with  whom  communion  was  sought; 
they  led  on  the  subjects  of  initiation 
into  scenes  which  were  designed  to 
stimulate  the  imagination  and  to 
awaken  a  vivid  sense  both  of  the 
terrors  and  joys  which  lie  beyond  the 
earthly  pilgrimage.  How  effectively 
they  could  enkindle  the  fancy  of  an 
impressible  person  is  intimated  by  the 


26  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

description  which  Apuleius  has  given 
of  initiation  into  the  mysteries  of 
Isis.  These  are  his  words:  "I  have 
transcended  the  boundaries  of  death, 
I  have  trodden  the  threshold  of 
Proserpine,  and  having  traversed  all 
the  elements  I  am  returned  to  the 
earth.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  I 
have  seen  the  sun  scintillating  with  a 
pure  light;  I  have  approached  the 
gods  below  and  the  gods  above,  and 
have  worshiped  face  to  face."15  Some 
allowance  may  be  made  for  the  stylistic 
ambition  of  the  rhetorician;  but  it 
is  entirely  probable  that  the  Mysteries, 
at  least  in  the  later  period  of  their 
history,  by  the  employment  of  various 
dramatic  expedients,  such  as  the  com- 
bination of  deep  shadows  and  brilliant 
lights,  were  often  able  to  exercise  a 
kind  of  hypnotic  influence  over  those 
who  sought  in  them  pledges  and  safe- 
guards of  future  well-being.    That  the 

15  Metamorphoses,  xi,  23. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  27 

scenic  representations  were  in  general 
well  adapted  to  their  end  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe.  This  is  not 
saying,  however,  that  they  harbored 
nothing  which  a  normally  educated 
sense  of  propriety  would  reprobate. 
The  contrary  must  be  admitted  if 
the  interpretation  which  a  prominent 
expositor  has  put  upon  the  nuptials 
of  Zeus  and  Demeter,  as  figured  at 
Eleusis,  is  authorized.16 

A  naturalistic  basis  of  the  mysteries 
is  quite  unmistakable.  The  divinities 
whom  they  commemorated  were  pri- 
marily vegetation  gods,  or,  more 
broadly  speaking,  gods  linked  with 
the  needs  and  fortunes  of  vegetable 
and  animal  life.  Such  distinctively 
was  the  earliest  in  the  list,  the  Baby- 
lonian Tammuz,  "the  young  god  of 
vegetation  who  dies  in  the  heat  of 
the  summer  solstice  and  descends  to 


18  Foucart,  Les  MystSres  d'Eleusis,  pp.  475-497. 


28  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

the  world  below,  leaving  the  earth 
barren  until  he  returns."17  In  Mithra- 
ism  this  point  of  view  may  not  have 
been  relatively  prominent;  but  in  the 
Mystery  cults  generally  the  divinities 
were  closely  connected  with  the  re- 
quirements of  cereal  growths  and  ani- 
mal procreation.  The  following  state- 
ment respecting  Adonis,  Attis,  and 
Osiris  may  be  given  a  wider  applica- 
tion: "All  three  apparently  embodied 
the  powers  of  fertility  in  general  and 
of  vegetation  in  particular.  All  three 
were  believed  to  have  died  and  risen 
again  from  the  dead;  and  the  divine 
death  and  resurrection  of  all  three 
were  dramatically  represented  at  an- 
nual festivals,  which  their  worshipers 
celebrated  with  alternate  transports  of 
sorrow  and  joy,  of  weeping  and  ex- 
ultation. The  natural  phenomena  thus 
sympathetically  conceived  and  myth- 
ically   represented    were    the    great 

17  Farnell,  Greece  and  Babylon,  p.  105. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  29 

changes  of  the  seasons,  especially  the 
most  striking  and  impressive  of  all, 
the  decay  and  revival  of  vegetation; 
and  the  intention  of  the  sacred  dramas 
was  to  revive  and  strengthen  by  sym- 
pathetic magic  the  failing  energies  of 
nature,  in  order  that  the  trees  should 
bear  fruit,  that  the  corn  should  ripen, 
that  men  and  animals  should  repro- 
duce their  kind."18  No  doubt  the 
gods  who  were  the  chief  figures  in 
the  Mysteries  came  to  stand  for  other 
functions  than  those  named  in  the 
citation.  A  great  variety  of  powers 
and  offices  was  assigned  to  Osiris  and 
Dionysos,  and  to  a  nearly  equal  extent 
others  were  given  a  multiple  role  by 
the  faith  and  enthusiasm  of  their 
devotees.  However,  the  significant 
fact  remains  that  in  the  Mystery 
Religions,  as  a  class,  a  naturalistic 
basis  was  prominent. 


13  Frazer,  Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris,  Studies  in  the  History  of  Oriental 
Religions,  p.  383. 


30  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

The  naturalistic  phase  was  coupled 
with  magic,  as  indeed  is  emphatically 
indicated  in  Frazer's  statement  of  the 
design  of  the  rites  in  which  tribute 
was  paid  to  Adonis,  Attis,  and  Osiris. 
In  so  far  as  the  Mysteries  were  related 
to  the  Babylonian  and  Egyptian  re- 
ligions they  naturally  shared  in  the 
element  of  magic,  for  that  element 
abounded  in  those  religions.  It  seems 
also  to  be  the  judgment  of  scholars 
that  the  Mysteries  wrought  for  the 
increased  dominion  of  magic  in  the 
Grseco-Roman  world.  As  late  as  the 
reign  of  Augustus,  Cumont  tells  us, 
professional  magicians  were  despised, 
but  with  the  advance  of  the  Oriental 
cults  they  rose  in  esteem.19  How 
strongly  the  current  set  in  that  direc- 
tion is  indicated  by  the  ultimate  grav- 
itation of  Neo-Platonism  into  theurgy. 
There  are  also  direct  evidences  that 
the  Mysteries  in  their  scheme  of  rites 

19  The  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism,  pp.  186,  187. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  31 

built  on  the  basis  of  magic.  "It  was 
necessary/ '  we  are  informed,  "at 
Eleusis  that  the  formulas  divulged  to 
the  initiated  should  be  pronounced 
with  the  right  intonation,  otherwise 
they  would  lose  their  effectiveness."20 
This  is  a  plain  hint  that  the  formulas 
were  construed  after  the  analogy  of 
magic.  Gasquet  probably  renders  a 
true  description  when  he  says:  "The 
sacraments  of  the  Mysteries  always 
suppose  a  magical  intervention.  It 
is  words,  rites,  formulas  that  have 
the  faculty  of  acting  directly  upon 
the  gods  and  of  constraining  their 
will.  It  imports  little  whether  the 
man  making  use  of  them  understands 
either  their  sense  or  their  reason."21 

The  age  in  which  the  Mysteries 
had  their  widest  diffusion  in  the  Ro- 
man empire  was  a  period  much  given 


20  Foucart,  Les  Myst£res  d'Eleusis,  p.  150. 

21  Essai  sur  le  Culte  et  les  Mysteres  de  Mithra,  pp.  80,  81. 


32  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

to  astrology  and  sidereal  mysticism 
in  general.  In  the  mystical  scheme 
of  Possidonius  large  account  was  made 
of  the  stars  and  of  their  interconnec- 
tion with  the  fortunes  of  souls.  In 
his  thinking  Chaldsean  elements  were 
blended  with  Stoic,  and  his  influence 
helped  to  give  currency  to  a  complex 
sidereal  scheme  as  an  important  and 
conditioning  factor  in  religion.  "Wide 
extension  was  awarded  to  the  doc- 
trine that  the  soul  in  descending  from 
heaven  takes  on  the  attributes  of 
the  planets  through  which  she  jour- 
neys, until  finally  she  enters  into 
embodied  existence.  After  death  she 
has,  by  a  reverse  movement,  to  make 
the  heavenward  journey,  in  order, 
after  having  laid  aside  at  the  several 
stations  the  limitations  of  earthly  ex- 
istence, to  return  to  her  original  home 
in  the  realm  of  light."22     Not  all  of 


22  Wendland,  Die  Hellenistisch-Romische  Kultur  in  ihren  Bezie- 
hungen  zu  Judentum  und  Christentum,  p.  166. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  33 

the  Mystery  Religions  may  have  taken 
specific  account  of  such  a  pronounced 
sidereal  framework.  It  was,  however, 
congenially  related  to  their  natural- 
istic and  magical  trend,  and  it  is 
quite  certain  that  in  Mithraism,  which 
encountered  Chaldsean  influences  dur- 
ing its  movement  to  the  West,  it  was 
prominently  represented.  The  follow- 
ing sketch  of  the  Mithraic  scheme  for 
the  ascent  of  the  soul  will  serve  to 
illustrate:  "The  heavens  were  divided 
into  seven  spheres,  each  of  which 
was  conjoined  with  a  planet.  A  sort 
of  ladder  composed  of  eight  super- 
posed gates,  the  first  seven  of  which 
were  constructed  of  different  metals, 
was  the  symbolic  suggestion,  in  the 
temples,  of  the  road  to  be  followed  to 
•reach  the  supreme  region  of  the  fixed 
stars.  To  pass  from  one  story  to  the 
next  the  wayfarer  had  each  time  to 
enter  a  gate  guarded  by  an  angel  of 
Ormuzd.    The  initiates  alone,  to  whom 


34  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

the  appropriate  formulas  had  been 
taught,  knew  how  to  appease  the 
inexorable  guardians.  As  the  soul 
traversed  these  different  zones,  it  rid 
itself,  as  one  would  of  garments,  of 
the  passions  and  faculties  it  had  re- 
ceived in  its  descent  to  the  earth. 
It  abandoned  to  the  moon  its  vital 
and  nutritive  energy,  to  Mercury  its 
desires,  to  Venus  its  wicked  appetites, 
to  the  sun  its  intellectual  capacities, 
to  Mars  its  love  of  war,  to  Jupiter 
its  ambitious  dreams,  to  Saturn  its 
inclinations.  It  was  naked,  stripped 
of  every  vice  and  every  sensibility, 
when  it  penetrated  the  eighth  heaven 
to  enjoy  there,  as  an  essence  supreme, 
and  in  the  eternal  light  that  bathed 
the  gods,  beatitude  without  end."23 
In  the  Hermetic  literature  a  kindred 
representation  occurs.24 

Under  proper  limitations  reference 

28  Cumont,  The  Mysteries  of  Mithra,  pp.  144,  145. 
24  Reitzenstein,  Poimandres,  p.  231. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  35 

may  be  made  to  a  pantheistic  tendency 
in  the  Mystery  Religions.  The  lim- 
itations are  that  this  tendency  did 
not  come  to  noteworthy  expression  in 
all  of  them;  and  in  any  case  was 
conspicuous  rather  in  the  later  than 
the  earlier  stages.  Of  Orphism  it  is 
noticed  that,  while  it  did  not  discard 
mythological  terminology,  it  revealed 
a  certain  affiliation  with  pantheism  in 
its  tendency  to  conceive  of  the  gods 
as  vague  cosmic  powers.25  In  the 
Hermetic  writings,  as  in  the  Gnostic 
systems,  pantheistic  and  dualistic 
strains  were  combined.26  According 
to  the  plain  representation  of  the  for- 
mer, God  not  only  contains  all  things, 
but  is  veritably  all  things.27  In  their 
later  stages  the  Egyptian  cults  showed 


*  Rohde,  Psyche,  II,  114,  115. 

26  Reitzenstein,  Poimandres,  p.  46.  G.  R.  S.  Mead,  while 
noticing  the  double  aspect,  argues  that  it  is  not  appropriate  to 
take  much  account  of  the  dualistic  phase.  Thrice-Greatest 
Hermes,  II,  30,  31,  115,  116,  160,  218. 

17  Menard,  Hermds  Trism6giste,  Traduction  Complete,  pp. 
lxxiv,  lxxviii.    See  also  Mead,  II,  16,  17,  104-106,  212,  276,  309,  377. 


36  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

a  close  affinity  with  a  pantheistic 
standpoint.  They  were  developed  in 
this  direction,  if  we  may  trust  Cu- 
mont,  by  Chaldsean  and  Syrian  in- 
fluences. He  writes:  "Isis  became  a 
pantheistic  power  that  was  everything 
in  one,  una  quae  est  omnia.  The 
authority  of  Serapis  was  no  less  ex- 
alted, and  his  field  no  less  extensive. 
He  also  was  regarded  as  a  universal 
god  of  whom  men  liked  to  say  that 
he  was  'unique.'  In  him  all  energies 
were  centered,  although  the  functions 
of  Zeus,  of  Pluto,  or  of  Helios  were 
especially  ascribed  to  him.  .  .  .  This 
theological  system,  which  did  not  gain 
the  upper  hand  in  the  Occident  until 
the  second  century  of  our  era,  was 
not  brought  in  Dy  Egypt.  It  did  not 
have  the  exclusive  predominance  there 
that  it  had  under  the  empire,  and 
even  in  Plutarch's  time  it  was  only 
one  creed  among  many.  The  deciding 
influence  in  this  matter  was  exercised 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  37 

by  the  Syrian  Baals  and  the  Chaldaean 
astrology."28  The  result  was  an  ap- 
proach to  monotheism,  a  cosmic  power 
being  acknowledged,  which,  indeed, 
might  be  manifested  in  different  forms 
and  addressed  under  different  names, 
but  which  it  was  thought  appropriate 
to  describe  as  one  and  universal. 

In  the  relative  prevalence  of  the 
pantheistic  viewpoint  a  favorable  basis 
of  syncretism,  or  comity,  between  the 
Mystery  Religions  was  obviously  pro- 
vided. Those  who  had  any  motive 
to  compound  the  different  divinities 
were  able  to  plead  that  there  was  no 
real  difference  between  them,  since 
they  were  to  be  interpreted  as  only 
varying  designations  of  the  power 
which  is  one  in  essence  though  di- 
versified in  manifestation.  Oriental 
and  Egyptian  gods  were  freely  iden- 
tified with  the  Greek,  as  Mithra  with 

28  The  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism,  pp.  89,  90. 


38  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

Helios,  Isis  with  Demeter,  Osiris  with 
Dionysos.  With  this  theoretical  syn- 
cretism a  practical  comity  was  con- 
joined to  some  extent.  There  were 
priests  who  functioned  in  the  temples 
of  more  than  one  of  the  mystic  cults.29 
On  the  part  of  Mithraism  a  special 
motive  may  have  operated  in  favor 
of  this  composite  role.  Unlike  the 
other  Mysteries  the  Mithraic  seem  not 
to  have  admitted  women.  " Among 
the  hundreds  of  inscriptions  that  have 
come  down  to  us  not  one  mentions 
either  a  priestess,  a  woman  initiate, 
or  even  a  donatress."30  We  are  left 
then  to  infer  that  the  predilection  for 
mystic  rites  which  may  have  been 
felt  by  the  women  connected  with  the 
initiates  of  Mithraism  had  to  be  sat- 
isfied outside  of  the  proper  Mithraic 
domain. 


29  Boisaier,  La  Religion  Romaine,  I,  430;  Cumont,   The   Mys- 
teries of  Mithra,  p.  177. 

3°  Cumont,  The  Mysteries  of  Mithra,  p.  173. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  39 


CHAPTER  II 

SOME  SPECIAL  PHASES  IN  THE 
CONTENT  OR  HISTORY  OF 
THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

In  connection  with  some  of  these 
religions  very  little  will  need  to  be 
added  to  what  was  said  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter.  Respecting  the  Eleu- 
sinian  Mysteries  it  may  properly  be 
noticed  that,  while  in  the  time  of 
Herodotus  initiation  was  limited  to 
the  Greeks,  at  a  later  period  those  of 
other  nationalities  who  understood  the 
Greek  language  and  had  the  status 
of  Roman  citizens  were  eligible  to 
admission  when  presenting  themselves 
at  Eleusis  at  the  time  of  the  annual 
celebration  in  September  and  October. 
Initiation  was  understood  to  establish 
a  close  bond  with  the  divinities  who 


40  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

were  specially  commemorated,  but  it 
was  not  regarded  as  shutting  one  up 
to  an  exclusive  scheme  of  worship. 
Among  the  divinities  recognized,  the 
benignant  Earth  Mother,  Demeter,  was 
central.  The  Maiden  or  Daughter, 
Kore  (or  Persephone),  was  prominent 
as  an  accessory  to  the  role  of  Demeter. 
The  statue  of  Iacchus  was  conspicuous 
in  the  solemn  procession  from  Athens 
to  Eleusis.  According  to  one  interpre- 
tation he  represented  a  special  form  of 
Dionysos;  according  to  another  he  was 
a  divinity  of  subordinate  rank.1  Di- 
onysos had  a  place  in  the  Eleusinian 
rites,  but  not  so  much  in  his  original 
Thracian  character,  as  a  patron  of 
ecstasy,  as  in  that  of  a  fosterer  of  the 
arts  and  of  agriculture.  Of  the  two 
classes  of  initiates,  the  mystes  and 
the  epopts,  it  is  conjectured  that  the 


1  The  former  is  represented  by  Legge,  The  Forerunners  and 
Rivals  of  Christianity,  I,  40,  and  by  W.  S.  Fox,  in  The  Mythology 
of  All  Nations,  I.  220;  the  latter  is  advocated  by  Foucart,  Les 
Mysteres  d'Eleusip.  p.  113. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  41 

latter  were  introduced  by  rites  in 
which  Dionysos  was  relatively  prom- 
inent.2 They  represented  an  ad- 
vanced grade  of  initiation,  which  was 
not  esteemed  necessary  to  salvation, 
and  by  a  large  proportion  was  not 
taken. 

Orphism  in  the  course  of  its  develop- 
ment made  connection,  on  the  one 
hand,  with  the  cult  of  Dionysos,  and 
on  the  other  with  Greek  philosophy. 
It  was  drawn  to  the  former  by  a  high 
appreciation  of  prophetical  inspiration, 
and  is  presumed  to  have  qualified  to 
some  extent  the  orgiastic  feature  at- 
tached to  that  cult  in  certain  quarters. 
In  respect  of  philosophy  it  affiliated 
especially  with  the  Pythagorean  teach- 
ing. Among  the  Mystery  Religions  it 
was  relatively  distinguished  by  its 
moral  earnestness,  though  sharing  in 
the  common  fault  of  an  ultra  cere- 


2  Foucart,  pp.  452-454. 


42  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

monialism.3  ^While  not  given  to  the 
more  extreme  forms  of  ascetic  practice, 
it  adopted  the  ascetic  point  of  view 
in  that  it  radically  disparaged  the 
sense  life  as  being  incompatible  with 
the  true  life  of  the  spirit.  In  connec- 
tion with  this  phase  of  its  teaching 
>/it  held  a  peculiar  doctrine  of  original 
sin.  For  this  a  basis  was  found  in 
the  story  of  Dionysos-Zagreus.  As  the 
mythical  narrative  runs,  Zagreus,  the 
offspring  of  Zeus  and  Persephone,  was 
attacked  by  the  Titans  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  the  jealous  Hera.  They  tore 
his  body  in  pieces  which  they  pro- 
ceeded to  devour.  However,  his  heart 
remained  intact,  and  this  being  brought 
to  Zeus,  he  swallowed  it  or  caused 
it  to  be  swallowed  by  Semele.  In 
the  issue  Zagreus  was  reborn  under 
the  name  of  Dionysos,  and  his  mur- 
derers,   the    Titans,    were    cast    into 

3  This  view  of  the  relative  prominence  of  the  moral  factor  in 
Orphism,  though  often  expressed,  is  challenged  by  F.  Legge,  Fore- 
runners and  Rivals  of  Christianity,  I,  145-147. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  43 

Tartarus.  Since  men,  in  respect  of 
their  bodies,  were  formed  from  the 
ashes  of  the  Titans,  they  share  in  the 
guilt  of  their  unholy  predecessors,  and 
need  the  virtue  of  purifying  rites  in 
order  to  be  set  free  from  the  evil 
inheritance.4  In  harmony  with  the 
temper  of  their  system  the  Orphists 
took  a  solemn  view  of  future  awards.  ^ 
They  pictured  grievous  punishments 
for  the  wicked,  though  not  representing 
them  as  endless.  With  Pythagoras 
they  held  that  a  single  term  of  earthly 
life  is  not  likely  to  accomplish  the 
needed  purification,  and  that  accord- 
ingly a  more  or  less  prolonged  series 
of  reembodiments  is  to  be  expected. 
That  the  soul  is  intrinsically  immortal  ^ 
they  regarded  as  quite  certain. 

As  has  been  indicated,  the  Phrygian 
cult  of  Cybele  and  Attis  was  charac- 

4  S.  Reinach,  Cultes,  Mythes,  et  Religions,  II,  59;  Rohde,  Psyche, 
II,  116ff.;  Miss  Harrison,  Prolegomena  to  the  Study  of  the 
Greek  Religion,  pp.  481-497. 


44  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

terized  by  a  very  pronounced  reference 
to  the  interests  of  vegetable  and  animal 
life.  "In  the  attributes,  functions,  and 
form  of  the  goddess,  we  can  discern 
nothing  celestial,  solar,  or  lunar;  she 
was  and  remained  to  the  end  a  mother- 
goddess  of  the  earth,  a  personal  source 
of  the  life  of  fruits,  beasts,  and  man."5 
Attis,  associated  with  her  as  lover,  hus- 
band, or  son,  figured  by  his  death  and 
resurrection  the  yearly  decay  and  re- 
vival of  vegetation.  According  to  one 
version  of  his  mythological  history  he 
was  slain  by  a  boar;  according  to 
another  he  died  from  self -mutilation. 
The  great  festival  of  Cybele  and  Attis 
occurred  in  early  spring,  beginning  on 
the  twenty-second  of  March  and  con- 
tinuing for  several  days.  The  celebra- 
tion was  so  conducted  as  to  work  up 
a  great  excitement  in  the  participants. 
"In  the  midst  of  their  orgies,  and  after 
wild  dances,  some  of  the  worshipers 

6  Farnell,  Greece  and  Babylon,  p.  109. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  45 

voluntarily  wounded  themselves,  and 
becoming  intoxicated  with  the  view  of 
the  blood,  with  which  they  besprinkled 
their  altars,  they  believed  they  were 
uniting  themselves  with  their  divinity. 
Or  else,  arriving  at  a  paroxysm  of 
frenzy,  they  sacrificed  their  virility  to 
the  gods.  These  men  became  priests 
of  Cybele  and  were  called  Galli."6 
Crude  and  abhorrent  as  these  features 
may  appear,  they  did  not  precipitate 
an  early  downfall  of  the  strange  re- 
ligion. The  worship  of  Cybele  and 
Attis  survived  the  establishment  of 
Christianity  by  Constantine.7 

The  effective  appeal  which  the  Egyp- 
tian cult  of  Isis,  Osiris,  and  Serapis 
was  able  to  make  to  the  peoples  in- 
cluded in  the  Roman  empire  was  due 
primarily,  in  no  small  degree,  to  the 
potent  relation  which  these  divinities 


8  Cumont,  The  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism,  p.  50. 
7  Frazer,  Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris,  p.  250. 


46  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

were  represented  to  hold  at  once  to 
the  realm  of  life  and  to  that  of  death. 
This  double  relation  was  figured  my- 
thologically  in  the  account  of  Osiris 
which  became  imbedded  in  Egyptian 
traditions.  As  the  story  goes,  Osiris, 
the  offspring  of  an  intrigue  between 
the  earth-god  Seb  and  the  sky-goddess 
Nut,  fulfilled  a  beneficent  vocation 
in  promoting  the  cultivation  of  the 
soil  and  the  advance  of  civilization. 
But  he  was  at  length  exposed  to  the 
malicious  plotting  of  his  brother  Set, 
who  caused  him  to  be  inclosed  in  a 
chest  and  to  be  cast  into  the  Nile. 
The  chest  was  discovered  by  Isis, 
both  sister  and  spouse  of  Osiris.  It 
was  not,  however,  so  securely  hidden 
by  her,  but  that  it  passed  under  the 
hand  of  Set,  who  cut  the  inclosed 
body  into  fourteen  pieces  and  scat- 
tered them  widely.  The  faithful  Isis 
spared  no  pains  to  gather  the  pieces. 
The  body  of  the  god  was  thus  recom- 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  47 

posed  and  he  became  installed  as  king 
of  the  dead.  As  a  favorite  divinity  he 
had  other  roles  assigned  to  him,  among 
them  that  of  a  sun-god.  His  most 
vital  association,  however,  was  with 
the  contrasted  realms  of  life  and  death. 
In  him  was  symbolized  the  ever-waning 
and  continually  reviving  life  of  the 
earth.  A  kindred  significance  belonged 
to  Isis  in  her  association  with  him. 
On  the  score  of  her  reputed  sympathy 
and  compassion  she  won  a  wide  appre- 
ciation. In  some  instances  she  was 
idealized  and  universalized  as  a  prin- 
ciple of  divine  wisdom.  Plutarch  in- 
terpreted her  as  standing  for  "that 
property  of  nature  which  is  feminine 
or  receptive  of  all  production."8  On 
the  whole,  she  probably  received  in 
the  general  range  of  the  Roman  empire 
more  warmth  of  devotion  than  any 
other     Egyptian     divinity.     As     for 


8  Of  iBieand  Osiris,  $53. 


48  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

Serapis,  he  was  essentially  the  product 
of  a  governmental  scheme.  The  first 
of  the  Ptolemies  (B.  C.  323-285) 
instituted  or  forwarded  his  worship  as 
one  in  which  Greeks  and  Egyptians 
might  unite.  Not  a  few  scholars  have 
interpreted  the  name  "Serapis"  as 
simply  a  shortened  form  of  "Osiris- 
Apis."  Whether  this  is  a  true  render- 
ing or  not,  "Serapis"  was  quite  com- 
monly regarded  as  the  equivalent  of 
"Osiris."  It  was  in  this  character 
that  he  was  accepted  by  his  Egyptian 
worshipers. 

Like  Vishnu  and  some  others  of 
the  Hindu  deities,  the  Persian  god 
Mithra  was  one  who  made  great  ad- 
vances in  respect  of  relative  position 
in  the  course  of  history.  His  recog- 
nition began,  indeed,  at  a  very  ancient 
date,  a  place  having  been  accorded 
him  in  the  Vedic  system  where  he 
appears   under   the    name    of    Mitra. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  49 

As  originally  rated  in  the  Zoroastrian 
system,  he  stood  with  the  genii,  twenty- 
eight  in  number,  who  were  created  by 
Ahura  Mazda  and  were  closely  asso- 
ciated with  the  pure  elements.  In 
virtue  of  the  fact  that  he  was  accounted 
the  genius  of  the  celestial  light  Mithra 
had  from  the  start  a  certain  kinship 
with  his  creator,  but  plainly  was  a 
being  of  subordinate  rank.  Formally 
the  aspect  of  subordination  may  not 
have  been  canceled  at  any  period,  but 
practically  it  came  in  the  end  to  be 
set  aside.  While  Mithra  continued  to 
be  assigned  the  office  of  mediator,  to 
a  large  extent  religious  dependence  was 
directed  rather  to  him  than  to  the 
higher  and  remoter  deity.  On  the 
one  hand,  he  attracted  devotion  by 
his  friendly  character.  Men  were 
solicited  to  look  to  him  as  a  kindly 
and  responsive  benefactor.  In  this 
respect  he  bears  comparison  with 
Apollo  and  the  Dioscuri  of  the  Greeks. 


50  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

On  the  other  hand,  he  commanded 
allegiance  as  the  embodiment  of  war- 
rior might  and  virtue.  He  was  reputed 
to  be  the  guardian  of  the  oath  and  a 
despiser  of  falsehood,  and  so  was 
qualified  to  appeal  to  those  who  put 
a  stanch  moral  ideal  to  the  front. 
As  compared  with  the  gods  of  other 
Mysteries,  he  was  more  of  a  sky  god, 
less  a  god  of  the  underworld  or  realm 
of  the  dead.  This,  however,  is  not 
to  be  understood  as  denying  that  he 
figured  as  a  succorer  of  the  dead. 
Like  the  other  divinities  he  was  es- 
teemed a  source  of  procreation  and 
fruitfulness  and  an  agent  of  resurrec- 
tion. It  is  seen,  then,  that  Mithraism 
possessed  features  favorable  to  propa- 
gandism.  With  these  were  combined 
some  that  were  not  so  favorable.  The 
very  scanty  regard  which  it  paid  to 
women  was  in  particular  a  serious 
limitation.  Then,  too,  some  of  its 
rites  could  hardly  have  been  agreeable 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  51 

to  the  more  cultured  among  either 
Greeks  or  Romans.  This  holds  espe- 
cially of  the  ceremony  known  as  the 
taurobolium,  in  which  the  devotee, 
seeking  purification,  stood  under  a 
latticed  platform  and  was  drenched 
with  the  blood  of  a  bull  slain  above. 
The  like  ceremony,  it  is  true,  is  credited 
to  the  cult  of  Cybele;  indeed,  in  its 
Mithraic  use  it  is  thought  to  have  been 
borrowed  from  that  source;9  but  in 
either  connection  it  must  have  been 
the  reverse  of  a  recommendation  to 
many  people.  As  respects  the  extent 
to  which  Mithraism  gained  a  footing 
in  the  Grseco-Roman  world  there  seems 
to  be  a  tendency  among  scholarly 
investigators  to  question  the  warrant 
for  the  strong  statements  which  have 
sometimes  been  made.  Against  Re- 
nan's  representation  that  at  one  time 
this  religion  bade  fair  to  dispute  the 


9  Cumont,  The  Mysteries  of  Mithra,  pp.  86,  87,  179-182;  Legge, 
Forerunners  and  Rivals  of  Christianity,  II,  258,  259. 


52  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

ascendency  of  Christianity  in  the  Ro- 
man empire,  attention  is  called  to 
the  fact  that  the  evidence  fails  to 
prove  that  Mithraism  ever  prevailed 
widely  outside  the  cantonments  of  the 
Roman  legions.  Furthermore,  as  is 
indicated  by  the  map  which  Cumont 
has  prepared,  we  have  the  fact  that 
it  failed  to  strike  root  in  most  of  the 
territory  which  could  boast  a  high 
stage  of  culture.  " Almost  the  entire 
domain  of  Hellenism/ '  says  Harnack, 
"was  closed  to  it,  and  consequently 
Hellenism  itself.  Greece,  Macedonia, 
Thrace,  Bithynia,  Asia  (proconsular), 
the  central  provinces  of  Asia  Minor 
(apart  from  Cappadocia),  Syria,  Pales- 
tine, and  Egypt — none  of  these  ever 
had  any  craving  for  the  cult  of  Mithra. 
And  these  were  the  civilized  countries 
by  preeminence.  They  were  closed 
to  Mithra,  and  as  he  thus  failed  to 
get  into  touch  at  all,  or  at  an  early 
stage  at  any  rate,  with  Hellenism,  his 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  53 

cult  was  condemned  to  the  position  of 
a  barbarous  conventicle.  Now  these 
were  the  very  regions  in  which  Chris- 
tianity found  an  immediate  and  open 
welcome,  the  result  being  that  the 
latter  religion  came  at  once  into  vital 
contact  with  Hellenism."10  The  his- 
torian adds  that  even  in  the  West, 
where  Mithraism  had  a  relatively  wide 
expansion,  there  is  inadequate  ground 
to  conclude  that  it  became  "any  real 
rival  of  Christianity." 

The  more  significant  features  in  the 
teaching  of  the  Hermetic  writings  have 
already  been  indicated.  Reference  was 
made  to  their  inclusion  of  both  panthe- 
istic and  dualistic  strains  and  to  their 
tribute  to  the  current  sidereal  mysti- 
cism. The  character  of  the  collection, 
made  up  as  it  was  of  about  a  score 
of    independent    parts,    composed    at 


10  The  Mission  and  Expansion  of  Christianity  in  the  First  Three 
Centuries,  II,  318-321. 


54  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

different  periods,  naturally  precluded 
strict  uniformity  in  doctrine.11  It  has 
been  noticed  that  Cumont  assigns  to 
this  literature  a  less  extensive  role 
than  that  favored  by  some  others. 
He  says:  "This  recondite  literature, 
often  contradictory,  was  apparently 
developed  between  B.  C.  50  and  A.  D. 
150.  It  has  considerable  importance 
in  relation  to  the  diffusion  throughout 
the  Roman  empire  of  certain  doctrines 
of  sidereal  religion  molded  to  suit 
Egyptian  ideas.  But  it  had  only  a 
secondary  influence.  It  was  not  at 
Alexandria  that  this  form  of  paganism 
was  either  produced  or  chiefly  de- 
veloped, but  among  the  neighboring 
Semitic  peoples." 12  One  of  the  pecu- 
liar doctrines  in  this  literature  is  thus 
stated:  "The  Master  of  eternity  is 
the  first  God,  the  world  is  the  second, 


11  Reitzenstein,  Poimandres,  p.  190. 

12  Astrology    and    Religion    Among    the   Greeks   and    Romans, 
pp.  76,  77. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  55 

and  man  is  the  third/'13  Another 
peculiar  representation  is  that  at  first 
all  the  animals  were  hermaphrodite, 
as  well  as  man,  and  that  the  division 
into  sexes  occurred  at  the  same  time 
for  the  human  and  the  animal  species.14 
A  third  peculiar  notion  concerns  the 
mediatorial  function  of  genii,  or  spirits 
of  a  non-human  order.  "The  intel- 
ligible world/7  it  is  said,  "is  attached 
to  God,  the  sensible  world  to  the 
intelligible  world,  and  through  these 
two  worlds  the  sun  conducts  the  efflu- 
ence of  God  that  is  creative  energy. 
Around  him  are  the  eight  spheres 
which  are  bound  to  him — the  sphere 
of  the  fixed  stars,  the  six  spheres  of 
the  planets,  and  that  which  surrounds 
the  earth.  To  these  spheres  the  genii 
are   bound,    and    to    the    genii    men; 


13  This  occurs  in  the  section  entitled  "Asklepios,"  which  Lafaye 
contends  must  be  located  in  the  Neo-Platonic  period,  Histoire  du 
Culte  des  Divinites  d'Alexandrie,  p.  85. 

14  Corpus  Hermeticum,  I,  18.  (Mead,  Thrice-Greatest  Hermes, 
vol.  ii,  p.  12.) 


56  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

and  thus  are  all  beings  bound  to  God, 
who  is  the  universal  Father."15  Among 
the  higher  elements  in  these  writings 
are  the  worthy  stress  which  is  placed 
upon  the  goodness  of  God,  the  em- 
phatic valuation  of  a  true  knowledge  of 
God,  and  the  clear  enunciation  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  souTs  immortality. 


16  Kingford  and  Maitland,  The  Hermetic  Works,  The  Virgin  of 
the  World,  p.  106. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  57 


CHAPTER  III 

DISTINCTIVE  POINTS  IN  WHICH 
THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 
SHOW  AGREEMENT  OR  CON- 
TRAST  WITH  CHRISTIANITY 

By  Christianity  in  this  connection 
is  meant  the  Christian  religion  in 
its  New  Testament  stage.  It  is  per- 
fectly conceivable  that  in  the  course 
of  its  development  post-apostolic,  and 
still  more  post-Constantinian,  Chris- 
tianity may  have  taken  on  charac- 
teristics akin  to  those  of  the  Mystery 
Religions.  The  question  of  intrinsic  or 
original  resemblances  or  contrasts  is 
obviously  very  different  from  the  ques- 
tion of  ultimate  likeness  or  unlikeness. 

Another  discrimination  is  appropri- 
ately kept  in  mind.  Agreement,  even 
up   to   a   conspicuous    degree,    is   no 


58  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

decisive  proof  of  borrowing.  In  view 
of  their  kindred  aims  and  objects,  all 
religions  are  bound  to  exhibit  resem- 
bling features;  and  where  the  religions 
are  attached  to  similar  planes  of  cul- 
ture the  resemblances  cannot  well  es- 
cape being  appreciable.  Were  one 
disposed  to  go  in  quest  of  points  of 
likeness  between  Christianity  and  the 
classic  religions  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
he  could  undoubtedly  fashion  a  rather 
full  catalogue.  But  no  judicial  mind 
would  take  his  list  as  a  demonstration 
that  Christianity  was  originated  by  a 
process  of  selection  from  the  pre- 
existing classic  systems  of  faith  and 
practice.  The  Mystery  Religions  in 
some  parts  of  their  content  may  seem 
to  excel  the  classic  systems  in  respect 
of  affinity  with  Christian  points  of 
view,  and  so  to  be  more  probable 
sources  of  shaping  influence.  But 
this  relative  closeness  of  approach 
along  certain  lines  is  remote  from  being 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  59 

a  positive  proof  of  effective  working 
in  the  domain  of  primitive  Christian- 
ity. So  far  as  theory  goes,  it  would 
involve  no  breach  of  logic  to  assume 
that  New  Testament  Christianity,  in 
rounding  out  its  system  in  harmony 
with  its  fundamental  postulates,  was 
under  compulsion  to  incorporate  some 
features  which  were  more  or  less  char- 
acteristic of  the  Mystery  Religions, 
and  would  have  done  so  if  those  re- 
ligions had  been  absolutely  out  of 
sight.  Of  course,  too,  in  so  far  as 
these  ethnic  cults  were  themselves  in 
process  of  development,  the  way  lies 
open  to  the  assumption  that  they  may 
have  been  in  some  respects  affected  by 
Christian  influence,  which,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  outcome,  was  decidedly 
the  most  potent  leaven  at  work  in 
the  Grseco-Roman  world.  It  is  not 
enough,  then,  to  take  note  of  the 
fact  that  a  given  Mystery  was  in 
existence   at   a   certain   pre-Christian 


60  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

date.  We  need  to  know  also  whether 
the  specific  features  which  serve  as 
a  ground  of  comparison  with  Chris- 
tianity were  certainly  pre-Christian. 

One  further  discrimination  is  natu- 
rally suggested.  The  supposition  that 
the  Mystery  Religions  incorporated  a 
certain  body  of  truth  akin  to  the 
content  of  Christianity  is  not  nec- 
essarily regarded  as  a  disparagement 
to  the  latter.  What  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria said  of  Greek  philosophy, 
namely,  that  it  had  the  office  of  a 
schoolmaster  to  bring  the  Hellenic 
mind  to  Christ,  might  conceivably  be 
said  of  the  Mystery  Religions.  The 
primacy  of  Christianity  is  not  denied 
by  any  agencies  that  prepare  the 
ground  for  its  own  ultimate  dominion. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  the  points  of  kinship 
between  Christianity  and  the  Mys- 
teries served  to  facilitate  the  accep- 
tance of  the  former  by  one  and   an- 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  61 

other  initiate,  while  yet  the  important 
points  of  contrast  earned  for  the  Mys- 
teries the  emphatic  reprobation  of  the 
apostolic  writers.  / 

In  an  important  outward  respect  the 
Mystery  Religions  undoubtedly  resem- 
bled early  Christianity.  Making  room 
for  exceptions,  we  can  say  that  as  a 
class  they  were  relatively  detached 
from  national  associations  and  national 
control.  Like  the  Christians,  their 
votaries  were  gathered  into  voluntary 
brotherhoods  wherein  the  chief  bonds 
were  a  common  faith  and  the  use  of 
common  rites.  Governmental  patron- 
age might  further  their  advance,  but 
independently  of  it  they  could  thrive 
in  any  quarter  where  they  were  able 
to  appeal  successfully  to  individual 
men  in  quest  of  religious  satisfaction. 

It  is  also  quite  certain  that  the 
Mystery  Religions  were  akin  to  Chris- 
tianity in  the  earnest  attempt  which 
they  made  to  minister  to  the  hopes 


62  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

of  men  in  relation  to  the  future  life. 
In  them  the  point  of  view  of  ancient 
Babylon  and  classic  Greece  was  tran- 
scended, and  a  worthful  immortality, 
as  opposed  to  a  vacant  and  pithless 
existence,  was  held  in  prospect.  They 
fostered  a  vital  impression  of  the 
greatness  of  eternal  interests,  and  what- 
ever artificialities  may  have  entered 
into  their  scheme  for  safeguarding 
those  interests,  they  undertook  an 
office  similar  to  that  of  Christianity 
in  assuming  to  lead  men  into  a  way 
of  security  as  respects  the  attainment 
of  a  priceless  good. 

Some  of  the  sacred  rites  commonly 
in  vogue  in  the  Mysteries  welre  anal- 
ogous to  the  cardinal  rites  of  the 
Christian  Church.  Confident  judg- 
ment here  is  properly  regarded  as 
materially  abridged  by  our  very  scanty 
information  respecting  the  ceremonies 
which  the  Mysteries  placed  under  the 
ban  of  secrecy.     It  is  quite  generally 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  63 

believed,  however,  that  they  included 
transactions  somewhat  resembling  the 
Christian  rites  of  baptism  and  the 
eucharist. 

In  emphasizing  heart-allegiance  to  a 
divine  person,  with  whom  redemptive 
offices  were  associated,  the  Mystery 
Religions  were  in  line  with  a  leading 
feature  of  Christianity.  On  this  point, 
doubtless,  they  were  not  radically  dis- 
tinguished from  other  non-Christian 
faiths.  Somewhat  of  the  same  ele- 
ment may  be  found  in  religions  gen- 
erally. But  relatively  they  were  dis- 
tinguished by  the  great  stress  which 
they  placed  upon  the  close  personal 
relation  of  the  initiates  with  the 
saviour-gods  in  whose  name  the  mystic 
rites  were  administered. 

Mention  might  further  be  made  of 
eschatological  particulars  in  which  the 
Mystery  Religions  stood  close  to  Chris- 
tian beliefs.  Mithraism  especially 
could  be  cited  as  presenting  something 


64  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

like  equivalents  for  Christian  repre- 
sentations respecting  ascension,  resur- 
rection of  the  dead,  visitation  of  the 
world  by  fire,  judgment  and  sentencing 
of  men,  according  to  their  deserts,  to 
heaven  or  to  hell.  It  would  be  rash, 
however  to  infer  from  the  correspond- 
ence any  direct  borrowing  of  Mithraic 
materials  by  Christianity.  It  is  very 
doubtful  whether  Mithraism  had  come 
into  any  real  contact  with  the  Chris- 
tian domain  when  the  New  Testament 
was  written.1 

On  the  side  of  contrasts  we  have 
in  the  first  place  the  fact  that  Chris- 
tianity presented  itself  to  the  world 
as  an  open  system,  not  a  fenced-off 
mystery.  It  made  no  attempt  to 
store  up  its  treasures  behind  locked 
and  bolted  doors.  Free  access  to  its 
whole  message  was  offered  to  every 

1  Cumont,  The  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism,  pp.  xix, 
xx;  Kennedy,  St.  Paul,  and  the  Mystery  Religions,  pp.  114,  115; 
Harnack,  The  Mission  and  Expansion  of  Christianity,  II,  318-321. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  65 

man.  In  so  far  as  seclusion  was 
sought  for  any  of  its  rites  it  was  at 
the  dictate  of  a  prudent  desire  to 
avoid  profanation  at  the  hands  of  a 
scornful  and  hostile  multitude.  It  had 
nothing  which  was  accounted  as  nec- 
essarily debarred  to  the  sight  of  the 
public.  Somewhat  of  a  counter  cur- 
rent was  indeed  started  after  a  period. 
In  some  measure  the  point  of  view 
embodied  in  the  secret  cult  of  the 
Mysteries  was  entertained  by  the 
Alexandrian  fathers  in  the  third  cen- 
tury, and  it  gained  distinct  recog- 
nition in  the  Disciplina  Arcana  in  the 
fourth  century.2  But  this  was  a  de- 
velopment which  was  foreign  to  the 
Christianity  of  the  first  century.  If 
we  may  judge  from  the  implicit  con- 
tradiction of  it  contained  in  the 
writings  of  Justin  Martyr,  it  had  not 
made  appreciable  headway  at  the  mid- 
dle of  the  second  century. 

2  Anrich,  Das  antike  Mysterienwesen,  pp.  126ff. 


66  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

In  a  second  respect  the  Christian- 
ity of  the  New  Testament  age  was 
widely  distinguished  from  the  Mystery 
Religions.  As  has  been  demonstrated 
a  naturalistic  basis  was  very  prominent 
in  them.  The  divinities  in  whom  they 
were  centered  were  primarily  nature 
powers,  the  potencies  of  vegetable  and 
animal  life,  and  the  experiences  of 
death  and  resurrection  celebrated  in 
connection  with  them  were  symbolic 
of  alternate  decay  and  revival  in  the 
sphere  of  natural  life.  Herein  they 
were  at  a  great  remove  from  Chris- 
tianity, which  set  the  divine  power 
distinctly  above  the  world,  and  as- 
serted for  its  characteristic  function 
the  governance  and  direction  of  the 
spiritual  and  ethical.  In  this  one 
feature  alone  it  stood  apart  from  them 
by  an  incalculable  interval. 

The  extent  to  which  the  Mystery 
Religions  appropriated  astrology  and 
sidereal  mysticism  in  general  may  be 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  67 

accounted  a  special  expression  of  their 
naturalistic  bent.  All  this  was  foreign 
to  primitive  Christianity.  The  New 
Testament,  it  is  true,  gives  expression 
to  the  thought  of  a  plurality  of  heavens; 
but  the  reference  is  purely  incidental 
and  subserves  rather  a  rhetorical  than 
a  dogmatic  purpose.  No  countenance 
whatever  is  given  to  the  artificial 
scheme  of  the  descent  and  ascent  of 
souls,  through  diverse  spheres,  which 
came  to  be  installed  in  the  leading 
Mystery  Religions. 

The  dominance  of  magic  in  this 
class  of  religions  presents  a  further 
ground  of  contrast  with  original  Chris- 
tianity. Those,  indeed,  who  allege 
that  the  apostolic  writers  conceived  of 
the  Christian  rites,  such  as  baptism 
and  the  eucharist,  as  working  ex  opere 
operato  (or  by  the  simple  virtue  of 
the  ritual  transaction)  charge  upon 
New  Testament  Christianity  a  species 
of   magic.     It   may  be   that   in   the 


68  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

technical  definition  magic  stands  for 
expedients  counted  strangely  effica- 
cious to  force  the  divine  will.  But 
expedients  which  are  considered  to  have 
the  sanction  of  the  divine  will,  in  so 
far  as  an  arbitrary  efficacy  is  pred- 
icated of  them,  or  they  are  assigned 
results  quite  outside  their  plane,  may 
be  said  without  abuse  of  language 
to  have  a  magical  aspect.  The  New 
Testament,  then,  if  the  given  allega- 
tion is  correct,  cannot  well  be  excused 
from  admitting  an  element  of  magic. 
Our  conviction,  which  we  shall  en- 
deavor to  sustain  in  subsequent  pages, 
is  that  the  allegation  respecting  the 
apostolic  understanding  of  the  Chris- 
tian rites  is  essentially  unfounded,3 
and  that  consequently  New  Testa- 
ment Christianity  is  very  decidedly 
contrasted  with  the  Mystery  Religions 
as  respects  giving  countenance  to 
magic.     That   a  relative   contrast   is 

»  See  Chapters  V  and  VI. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  69 

to  be  affirmed,  no  reputable  scholar, 
it  is  believed,  would  care  to  dispute. 
We  notice,  on  the  part  of  a  New 
Testament  critic  who  attributes  to  the 
apostolic  writers  the  ex  opere  operato 
view  of  the  sacraments,  this  judgment 
on  the  Mystery  Religion  as  a  whole: 
"It  was  weak  intellectually  and  eth- 
ically; it  had  not  cut  itself  off  from 
mythology,  and  its  ethic  was  lower 
than  that  of  Seneca  or  of  the  philos- 
ophers in  general."4  No  such  state- 
ment, most  assuredly,  can  be  made 
respecting  the  New  Testament.  The 
cogency  with  which  it  sets  the  ethical 
point  of  view  on  high  puts  it  in  un- 
mistakable contrast  with  the  Mystery 
Religions.  Even  if  one  should  suppose 
that  it  contains  a  magical  element,  he 
must  grant  that  it  does  not  permit 
that  element  to  overshadow  the  moral 
after  the  mode  and  the  measure  of  the 
ethnic  systems. 

<Kir8opp  Lake,  The  Stewardship  of  Faith,  p.  86. 


70  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

Once  more  the  Mystery  Religions 
appear  in  contrast  with  original  Chris- 
tianity in  their  syncretistic  bent,  or 
readiness  to  make  exchanges  among 
themselves,  and  to  acknowledge  the 
essential  identity  of  one  with  another. 
A  consciousness  of  a  very  different 
order  ruled  in  the  Christian  domain. 
There  the  idea  of  striking  hands  with 
any  contemporary  cult  was  radically 
discountenanced.  .  The  votaries  of 
Christianity  were  firmly  convinced  that 
their  religion  was  grounded  in  actual 
historic  revelation,  and  had  its  essen- 
tial content  given  in  that  revelation, 
so  that  it  could  not  be  made  over 
for  the  accommodation  of  any  party, 
without  a  most  culpable  recreancy  to 
the  truth.  Doubtless  the  partisans 
of  the  Mysteries  had  a  certain  faith 
in  the  reality  of  the  divinities  whom 
they  celebrated,  and  were  far  from 
admitting  formally  that  their  careers, 
as    figured    in    the    customary    rites, 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  71 

were  purely  mythological.  But  the 
available  evidences  for  this  faith  were 
dim  and  scanty.  A  basis  of  assurance, 
like  that  contained  in  the  living  Chris- 
tian tradition,  was  not  attainable.  In 
fact,  a  readiness  to  compound  one  cult 
with  another  was  a  half  confession 
that  all  alike  belonged  to  the  sphere 
of  symbolism,  and  were  to  be  rated 
in  their  concrete  representations  as 
rather  mythological  than  historical. 
Locally  and  temporarily  these  cults 
may  have  derived  advantage  from  the 
policy  of  comity  and  accommodation, 
but  they  were  not  fitted  to  stand  out 
against  a  religion  which  carried  the 
assurance  of  historic  foundations. 


72  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  QUESTION  OF  PAUL'S  IN- 
DEBTEDNESS TO  THE  MYS- 
TERY RELIGIONS  FOR  CHAR- 
ACTERISTIC TERMS  AND 
IDEAS 

The  propriety  of  distinguishing  be- 
tween the  two  forms  of  indebtedness 
is  quite  obvious.  Scholars  who  deny 
that  the  apostle  derived  anything  sub- 
stantial, in  the  way  of  ideas,  from  the 
Mystery  Religions  are  free  to  admit 
that  he  may  have  appropriated  certain 
terms  which  came  from  that  quarter. 
Thus  Schweitzer  remarks:  "Paulinism 
and  Hellenism  have  in  common  their 
religious  terminology,  but  in  respect 
of  ideas,  nothing.  The  apostle  did 
no£'  Hellenise  Christianity.  His  con- 
ceptions are  equally  distinct  from  those 
of  Greek  philosophy  and  from  those 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  73 

of  Mystery  Religions.  The  affinities 
which  have  been  alleged  cannot  stand 
an  examination  which  takes  account 
of  their  real  essence  and  of  the  different 
way  in  which  the  ideas  are  condi- 
tioned in  the  two  cases."1  Much  to 
the  same  effect  are  the  words  of 
Clemen.  Referring  to  certain  Pauline 
terms  which  admit  of  comparison  with 
the  language  of  the  Mysteries,  he  says, 
"It  is  a  mere  question  of  forms  of 
expression;  in  themselves  they  prove 
absolutely  nothing  as  to  an  influence 
of  the  Mystery  Religions  on  the  Paul- 
ine theology."2  The  like  point  is 
urged  by  Ramsay  in  the  broad  state- 
ment: "The  influence  of  Greek  thought 
on  Paul,  though  real,  is  all  surely 
external.  Hellenism  never  touches  the 
life  and  essence  of  Paulinism  which  is 
fundamentally  and  absolutely  Hebrew; 
but  it  does  strongly  affect  the  expres- 

1  Paul  and  His  Interpreters,  p.  238. 

2  Der  Einfluss  der  Mysterienreligionen  auf  das  alteste  Christen- 
tum,  pp.  29,  30. 


74  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

sion  of  Paul's  teaching."3  The  cita- 
tion speaks  of  "Hellenism,"  but  Ram- 
say makes  it  plain  that  he  would 
not  have  put  a  less  emphatic  limitation 
on  Paul's  borrowing  had  the  reference 
been  specifically  to  the  Mystery  Re- 
ligions. Of  course  it  is  theoretically 
possible  that  within  limits  Paul  may 
have  borrowed  ideas  as  well  as  taken 
up  forms  of  expression  from  the  con- 
temporary cults.  What  needs  to  be 
kept  in  mind  is  that  the  latter  is  no 
adequate  proof  of  the  former. 

In  respect  of  terms,  it  is  less  easy 
than  might  be  imagined  at  first  thought 
to  determine  the  measure  in  which 
Paul's  phraseology  was  under  specific 
obligation  to  the  Mysteries.  Some  of 
his  characteristic  terms  may  have  been 
at  hand  in  the  current  religio-philo- 
'  sophical  dialect  of  the  Greek-speaking 
world,  so  that  there  was  no  need  of 
recourse  to  the  Mystery  cults  to  gain 

»  The  Teachings  of  Paul  in  Terms  of  the  Present  Day,  pp.  161, 162. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  75 

a  suggestion  of  their  employment. 
Others  of  them  can  be  regarded  as 
having  an  Hebraic  foundation,  as  be- 
ing suggested  by  forms  of  expression 
in  the  Hebrew  Bible,  such  as  the 
alert  mind  of  the  apostle  could  render, 
with  or  without  assistance  from  the 
Septuagint  version,  into  the  Greek 
equivalents  which  his  thought  de- 
manded. A  fair  application  of  these 
considerations,  it  is  believed,  will  appre- 
ciably reduce  the  list  of  Pauline  words 
which  can  confidently  be  referred  to 
the  Mystery  Religions  as  their  in- 
dubitable source.  Among  the  words 
which  come  into  discussion  are  the 
following:  ^ivaryiptov,  re^ecog,  nvev^ta  as 
distinguished  both  from  ^v%yi  and 
vovq,  nvevfianxog,  ^v%ix6g,  yv&oig,  dyvco- 
cia,  <J>G)Tfc£ elv,  &6%a,  eix&v,  [iera{iop- 
cpovodat,  aco^ecrOat,  crayr^pta,  and  xvpiog 
as  a  distinctive  title  of  Christ. 

The  term  (xvar^ptov  occurs  upward 
of  a  dozen  times  in  the  Pauline  Epis- 


76  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

ties.4  The  thoroughly  predominant 
sense  in  which  it  is  used  is  that  of 
plan,  purpose,  or  prospective  event 
which  is  hidden  from  ordinary  research 
and  needs  to  be  made  known  by 
revelation  or  authoritative  instruction. 
What  at  first  sight  might  be  taken 
as  an  exception  occurs  in  Ephesians 
v.  32,  where  the  term  is  applied  to 
marriage.  To  bring  this  into  line 
with  the  apostle's  customary  use  we 
should  need  to  think  of  the  marriage 
union  of  man  and  woman  as  in  a 
hidden  way  expressive  or  symbolical 
of  the  great  truth  of  the  union  of 
Christ  and  the  church.  In  the  Septua- 
gint,  where  the  term  occurs  nearly 
as  many  times  as  in  the  Pauline 
Epistles,  it  has  in  like  manner  refer- 
ence to  plans  and  counsels  which  are, 
in  fact,  hidden,  though  not  necessarily 
occult  in  nature.    No  reason  is,  there- 


*  Rom.  xi.  25;  1  Cor.  ii.  7,  iv.  1,  xiv.  2,  rv.  51;  Eph.  i.  9,  iii.  3,  4, 
9,  v.  32.  vi.  19;  Col.  i.  26,  27,  iv.  3;  1  Tim.  iii.  16. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  77 

fore,  apparent  why  the  apostle  should 
be  regarded  as  beholden  to  the  Mystery 
Religions  so  far  as  his  general  use 
of  the  term  fivarrjpiov  is  concerned. 
That  use  had  been  naturalized  before 
his  day  in  Jewish  circles. 

With  a  somewhat  better  show  of 
reason  it  may  be  urged  that  Paul's 
use  of  the  word  fivat^piov  in  connec- 
tion with  reXeioq  (1  Cor.  ii.  1-10), 
argues  for  his  indebtedness  to  the 
Mysteries,  since  reXstog  was  a  tech- 
nical term  for  designating  the  standing 
of  an  initiate.  This  basis,  however, 
is  too  fragile  to  support  a  positive 
conclusion.  To  whatever  extent  reXetog 
may  have  been  installed  in  the  dia- 
lect of  the  Mysteries  prior  to  Paul's 
day,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that  it  was  used  outside  of  them  in 
much  the  same  sense  in  which  it  was 
used  by  him,  namely,  to  designate 
maturity  or  relative  perfection,  as 
opposed  to  an  initial  stage  of  develop- 


78  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

ment.  It  occurs  in  that  sense  with 
Philo,5  an  older  contemporary  of  Paul, 
and  the  same  use  is  very  closely 
approached  in  the  Septuagint.6  If  the 
apostle  needed  to  borrow  from  ante- 
cedent usage  he  could  easily  do  so 
without  recourse  to  the  Mystery  Re- 
ligions. The  most  that  can  rightly 
be  claimed  for  that  source  is  contained 
in  these  words  of  a  writer  whose  pains- 
taking review  of  the  subject  renders 
excellent  service:  "In  view  of  the 
earlier  associations  of  the  communities 
which  Paul  addresses,  we  cannot  cer- 
tainly rule  out  the  suggestion  that 
the  Mystery-atmosphere  is  to  some 
extent  present,  although  plainly  no 
conclusion  can  be  drawn  from  this 
term  as  to  Paul's  personal  attitude 
toward  the  Mystery  conceptions."7 


6  Opera,  Graece  et  Latine,  Erlangen,  vol.  i,  pp.  302,  324;  English 
translation  by  Yonge,  Allegories  of  the  Sacred  Laws,  Book  iii, 
5§xxxiii,  xlvii,  xlviii. 

0  1  Chron.  xrv.  8. 

7  Kennedy,  St.  Paul  and  the  Mystery  Religions,  pp.  134,  135. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  79 

A  basis  for  Paul's  psychological 
terms  is  largely  supplied  by  the  Old 
Testament.  His  adpf,  ^vxv,  and 
nvsvfia  correspond  in  a  general  way 
to  the  Hebrew  basar,  nephesh,  and 
ruach.  In  either  case  the  third  term 
has  a  double  connotation.  It  may 
denote  either  the  divine  Spirit  which 
replenishes  man  with  a  higher  life, 
or  it  may  signify  the  finite  human 
spirit.  In  the  latter  sense  it  is  not 
very  clearly  and  uniformly  distin- 
guished from  the  second  factor,  either 
in  the  Pauline  or  the  Old  Testament 
writings.  We  may  say  that  spirit  is 
the  preferred  term  where  there  is  a 
wish  to  emphasize  the  life  of  man  in 
its  Godward  relations,  whereas  soul 
is  employed  when  the  reference  is 
simply  to  the  center  of  man's  personal 
life;  but  in  some  instances  the  soul 
seems  to  be  taken  as  equivalent  to 
man's  supersensuous  being  without 
restriction  as  to  its  relations.     Peculi- 


80  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

arities  of  the  Pauline  terminology  are 
the  use  of  the  term  <7dp£  in  opposition 
to  moral  good  and  the  sharp  antithesis 
which  is  made  between  the  adjective 
terms  tyv%vx&$  and  nvevfj,anx6g,  the 
one  being  applied  to  man  as  pre- 
dominantly a  subject  of  the  earthly 
sense  life,  and  the  other  describing 
him  as  he  is  under  the  rule  of  the 
spiritual  and  divine.  With  the  latter 
term  vovg  is  associated  so  far  as  oppo- 
sition to  the  flesh  is  concerned  (Rom. 
vii.  23,  25);  but  it  is  in  a  measure 
distinguished  from  the  nvev^ia  since 
it  is  the  seat  especially  of  the  reflective 
intelligence,  and  gives  place  to  the 
other  term  when  the  reference  is  to 
ecstatic  fellowship  with  God  (1  Cor. 
xiv.  14,  15).  In  these  peculiarities  the 
apostle  represents  an  appreciable  de- 
velopment beyond  the  Old  Testament. 
That  contains,  it  is  true,  a  strong  con- 
trast between  flesh  and  spirit,  but  it 
is  the  contrast  between  the  feebleness 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  81 

and  transitoriness  of  man's  physical 
frame  and  the  everlasting  might  of 
the  divine  Spirit,  not  the  ethical  con- 
trast which  is  set  forth  in  the  Pauline 
Epistles.  On  what  antecedents  did 
Paul  base  his  special  usage?  Not 
unequivocally  on  Hellenic  antecedents, 
for  these  do  not  present  an  exact 
counterpart.  In  Orphism,  in  the  Pla- 
tonic philosophy,  and  in  some  other 
Hellenic  domains,  we  doubtless  find 
the  sense  life  and  the  life  of  the  spirit 
strongly  opposed.  But  here  matter  is 
made  intrinsically  unfriendly  to  spirit, 
so  that  the  embodied  life  is  necessarily 
regarded  as  at  a  disadvantage  in  com- 
parison with  the  disembodied.  This  is 
remote  from  Paul's  standpoint.  With 
him  the  body  is  a  subject  for  sanctifica- 
tion  and  glorification,  and  holds  a  per- 
manent place  in  the  ideal  for  man. 
Consequently,  it  is  made  perfectly  plain 
that  he  uses  flesh  (crdp£)  in  a  pregnant 
sense,  denoting  by  it  rather  the  unre- 


82  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

newed  man,  who  is  so  easily  led  cap- 
tive by  fleshly  impulses,  than  the 
material  substance  as  such.  His  usage 
is  neithei  Hebrew  nor  Hellenic.  It 
may  be  indebted  for  suggestions  to 
both,  but  prudent  scholarship  will 
hesitate  to  deny  its  individualistic 
character  and  will  be  slow  to  force 
it  to  wear  a  foreign  badge.  Paul's 
opposition  between  crdp£  and  nvev^a 
is  more  Pauline  than  anything  else. 
It  does  not  conform  to  any  Hellenic 
pattern  whether  inside  or  outside  the 
Mysteries.  How  is  it  with  the  other 
phase  of  his  terminology  which  lacks 
a  distinct  Old  Testament  basis,  the 
antithesis  between  ^v^ixoc,  and 
nvevfianxog?  The  latter  term  was 
very  likely  well  naturalized  in  the 
Mysteries,  being  accounted  especially 
appropriate  to  one  who  had  reached 
the  goal  of  ecstatic  union  with  the 
divinity.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
seems  to  be  a  serious  lack  of  evidence 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  83 

that  in  the  terminology  of  the  Mysteries 
the  formal  antithesis  between  ^v%ix6$ 
and  nvevfiattxog,  in  the  Pauline  sense, 
was  current.  Its  appearance  in  Gnos- 
ticism proves  nothing  to  the  contrary, 
for  the  Pauline  writings  were  one  of 
the  sources  of  Gnosticism  as  known 
to  us.  We  conclude,  then,  that  in 
respect  of  psychological  terms  Paul  is 
not  shown  to  have  been,  in  any 
notable  degree,  a  borrower  from  the 
Mystery  Religions.  He  derived  sug- 
gestions from  both  the  Hebrew  and 
the  Hellenic  domains.  He  was  not  a 
servile  copyist  of  any  set  of  ante- 
cedents. The  evidence  of  his  indebted- 
ness specifically  to  the  Mysteries  is 
tenuous  and  conjectural.8 

8  We  add  judgments  of  H.  W.  Robinson  and  E.  D.  Burton. 
The  former  says:  "Paul,  in  spite  of  the  use  of  some  Greek  terms 
('inner  man,'  'mind,'  'conscience'),  remains  psychologically  what 
he  calls  himself,  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews;  the  advances  he  makes 
on  the  conceptions  of  the  Old  Testament  are  a  natural  Jewish 
development,  whilst  their  originality  can  be  shown  as  compared 
with  Palestinian  Judaism,  as  well  as  with  the  Hellenistic  thought 
of  Alexandria.  His  modifications  of  Jewish  thought  are  primarily 
due  to  his  personal  experience,  and  such  Hellenistic  influences  as 
were  inevitable  in  his  period  were  unconsciously  imbibed  by  Paul 


84  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

The  stress  placed  upon  revelation 
as  a  source  of  the  higher  and  more 
efficacious  knowledge,  in  both  the  Paul- 
ine writings  and  the  Mystery  Religions, 
involves  a  certain  kinship  in  their 
use  of  such  terms  as  yvdaig  and  its 
opposite  dyvoala.  The  similar  point 
of  view  would  of  necessity  involve  a 
similar  use  of  terms.  Moreover,  it  is 
to  be  observed  that  as  a  student  of 
the  literature  of  the  Old  Testament, 
Paul  was  definitely  introduced  to  the 
representation  of  a  knowledge  or  wis- 
dom which  comes  by  the  gift  of  the 
divine  Spirit.9     Once  more,  it  is  not 

and  subordinated  or  assimilated  to  his  Jewish  psychology"  (The 
Christian  Doctrine  of  Man,  p.  104).  Burton  notices  that  the 
psychological  usage  of  the  Hermetic  writings  is  rather  broadly 
contrasted  with  that  of  Paul.  He  also  contends  that  the  sig- 
nificance which  the  apostle  attached  to  the  <n£/>£  is  not  to  be  de- 
rived from  any  known  Hellenic  antecedents.  "The  flesh  that 
makes  for  evil,"  he  says,  "is  not  the  body  or  matter  as  such,  but 
an  inherited  impulse  to  evil.  .  .  .  The  whole  evidence  of  the  Synopti- 
cal Gospels  tends  to  confirm  the  impression  gained  from  the  study 
of  Paul,  that  his  usage  is  not  as  a  whole  a  reflection  of  common 
usage  in  his  day,  but  to  an  important  extent  the  result  either  of 
exceptional  influences  or  his  own  thinking"  (American  Journal 
of  Theology,  October,  1916,  pp.  550,  586,  589). 

9Hosea,  ii.  20,  v.  4;  Isa.  xi.  2;  Prov.  ii.  5;  1  Kings,  x.  24;  Job, 
xxxii.  8;  Psa.  cxix.  144. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  85 

to  be  overlooked  that  in  PauPs  teach- 
ing there  is  a  special  phase,  in  that  it 
sets  forth  knowledge  as  profoundly 
conditioned  ethically,  as  indeed  being 
of  no  worth  at  all  apart  from  love. 
These  facts  may  well  modify  a  dog- 
matic impulse  to  translate  the  similar- 
ities into  certain  evidence  of  borrow- 
ing from  the  ethnic  systems.  The 
possibility  that  the  apostle  was  influ- 
enced in  this  part  of  his  vocabulary 
by  the  atmosphere  of  the  Mysteries 
may  be  admitted,  but  the  warrant  for 
a  confident  assumption  is  not  apparent. 
As  for  the  Hermetic  literature,  which 
is  alleged  to  present  in  particular 
parallels  to  the  Pauline  use  of  the 
terms  in  question,  the  date  of  its 
composition  and  collection  leaves  room 
for  the  supposition  that  through  the 
channel  of  Gnosticism  it  may  have 
appropriated  at  one  point  or  another 
a  tinge  of  Pauline  phraseology. 
The  most  important  of  the  remain- 


86  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

ing  terms  which  come  into  considera- 
tion is  xvpiog.  Little  occasion  exists 
for  a  specific  dealing  with  <j>G)<rt£W, 
ho%a,  slxcdv,  (i£ra(iop<povcdcu,  G&^eadai, 
and  ccdTYipia.  Plain  suggestions  of  all 
of  them  except  (j.era[iop$ovG6ou  are 
contained  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
besides  they  are  so  far  congenial  to 
religious  discourse  generally  that  the 
apostle  might  reasonably  be  expected 
to  employ  them  or  closely  resembling 
terms.  For  the  use  of  (ie?anop<povad(u 
the  occasion  was  not  quite  so  obvious, 
though  it  is  perfectly  conceivable  that 
the  apostolic  thinker,  having  in  mind 
the  reaching  of  a  supernatural  goal 
through  supernatural  means,  might 
naturally  have  had  recourse  to  the 
term.  An  acquaintance  with  the  Mys- 
teries could  doubtless  have  introduced 
him  to  it,  though  not  fully  in  his 
sense.  "In  the  Mystery  Religions  the 
chief  stress  is  laid  upon  a  quasi-mag- 
ical  transmutation   of   essence.     The 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  87 

nature  of  Paul's  conception  of  the 
nvevpa  sets  in  the  foreground  the 
moral  significance  of  the  process."10 

In  connection  with  xvpiog  (Lord)  the 
claim  is  made  that  its  application  to 
Jesus  could  not  have  been  initiated 
on  the  basis  of  Old  Testament  prece- 
dent or  Old  Testament  training,  since 
in  that  sphere  the  monotheistic  point 
of  view  stood  in  the  way  of  admitting 
the  ascription  of  lordship  to  any  other 
than  Jehovah;  that  the  title  was  cur- 
rent in  the  Mysteries  as  the  designa- 
tion of  the  divinity  who  was  acknowl- 
edged as  the  head  of  the  mystic 
community;  that  consequently  it  was 
taken  from  this  quarter  and  installed 
in  its  Christian  use  by  the  election  of 
Paul  or  by  his  acquiescence  in  the 
choice  of  his  Gentile  converts.11  The 
claim  seems  plausible.  There  are  some 
considerations,    however,    which    may 

10  Kennedy,  St.  Paul  and  the  Mystery  Religions,  p.  183. 

11  See  in  particular  Bousset,   Geschichte   des   Christusglaubens 
von  den  Angfangen  des  Chris tentums  bis  Irenaeus. 


88  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

serve  to  qualify  the  occasion  to  stress 
the  dominating  influence  of  the  Mys- 
teries in  the  matter.  Even  in  the 
Old  Testament  a  suggestion  is  given  of 
one  who  stands  as  Lord  (xvpcog  in  the 
Septuagint)  alongside  of  the  Lord 
Jehovah  (Psa.  ex.  1);  and  the  text 
bearing  this  suggestion  was  given  a 
certain  prominence  through  its  cita- 
tion by  Jesus  in  his  encounter  with  the 
Pharisees  (Matt.  xxii.  45;  Luke  xx.  44). 
Furthermore  the  antecedent  thought 
of  the  Messiah  in  at  least  a  portion 
of  the  Jewish  domain,  as  affirming  of 
him  a  distinctly  superhuman  rank,12 
was  adapted  to  supplement  the  sugges- 
tion furnished  by  the  psalmist's  words, 
and  to  point  to  the  Messiah  as  a  fit 
subject  for  the  name  of  xvptog.  An 
appreciable  Jewish  basis  was  thus 
supplied  for  applying  this  name  to  the 
transcendent  person  whom  the  prim- 


12  Book  of  Enoch,  chapters  xxxvii-lxxi;  Fourth  Book  of  Ezra, 
vii,  xiii,  xiv. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  89 

itive  Christian  faith  acknowledged  as 
the  Messiah.  In  harmony  with  the 
supposition  that  this  Judaic  ground 
was  influential  is  the  fact  of  the  early 
currency  among  the  Christians  of  the 
Aramaic  phrase  maranatha,  "the  Lord 
cometh."13  It  is  not  to  be  overlooked 
also  that  in  the  Graeco-Roman  world  of 
Paul's  day  the  title  xvpiog  had  other 
associations  than  those  given  it  in 
connection  with  the  Mysteries.  By 
the  time  the  apostle  began  to  pen  his 
epistles,  the  custom,  which  was  pro- 
nounced from  the  age  of  Domitian,  was 
in  all  probability  under  way,  the  cus- 
tom namely  of  dignifying  the  em- 
peror with  the  title  of  xvpiog.  Is  it 
to  be  supposed  that  this  use  of  the 
title  would  have  recommended  it  to 
Paul  or  to  any  other  contemporary 
Christian?  Our  conviction  is  that  it 
must  have  acted  as  the  very  opposite 

13  Compare  E.  F.  Scott,  The  Beginnings  of  the  Church,  pp. 
95-108;  J.  H.  Ropes,  A  Critical  and  Exegetical  Commentary  on 
the  Epistle  of  St.  James,  p.  34. 


90  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

of  a  recommendation.  No  less  is  it 
our  conviction  that  the  employment 
of  the  title  in  the  Mysteries  must  have 
served  as  the  reverse  of  a  motive 
for  its  adoption.  Some  of  Paul's 
converts  may  have  heard  it  in  that 
connection;  but  what  we  know  of  the 
apostle's  attitude  toward  contemporary 
Gentilism  leads  us  to  suppose  that  he 
advised  those  who  took  Christ  as  their 
Master  to  clear  their  minds  completely 
of  all  the  fancies  and  fables  of  their 
old  faith.  They  were  instructed  to  rate 
these  as  a  bygone  and  to  account 
themselves  new  creatures  in  Christ 
Jesus.  If  the  apostle  took  over  from 
them  a  title  which  had  functioned  in 
their  old  paganism,  it  was  not  in  any 
degree  because  it  had  so  functioned. 
It  was,  rather,  because  he,  and  with 
him  contemporary  Christians,  had  a 
conception  of  Christ  which  that  title 
matched  better  than  any  other  in  the 
available  vocabulary.    It  at  once  gave 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  91 

expression  to  the  transcendent  dignity 
and  authority  which  they  wished  to 
ascribe  to  Christ,  and  was  in  harmony 
with  their  intention  to  conserve  a  cer- 
tain preeminence  to  the  Father.  Ante- 
cedent Gentile  usage  did  not  give  them 
the  motive  for  adopting  the  title; 
rather  their  ruling  conception  of  Christ 
constrained  them  to  adopt  the  title 
in  spite  of  its  association  with  crude 
imperial  gods  or  fabled  divinities. 

In  point  of  theory  we  freely  admit 
the  probability  that  Paul's  religious 
vocabulary  was  influenced  by  his  Hel- 
lenic environment,  and  more  specific- 
ally by  the  Mystery  Religions  in  so 
far  as  they  were  a  conspicuous  factor 
in  that  environment.  But  other  ante- 
cedents were  influential  with  the  apos- 
tle, and  there  are  abundant  reasons 
for  caution  against  attributing  too 
great  a  role  to  the  special  factor.  A 
very  exaggerated  impression  may  be 
formed,  as  to  the  degree  in  which  the 


92  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

Mystery  Religions  impinged  upon  the 
mind  of  Paul,  by  scouring  the  Graeco- 
Roman  world  and  gathering  up, 
through  a  period  of  several  centuries, 
all  the  phrases  having  a  semblance 
of  Pauline  usage.  Such  a  compacting 
process  easily  lends  itself  to  an  over- 
grown impression.  It  is  our  convic- 
tion that  the  Mystery  Religions  did 
not  bulk  so  large  in  the  apostle's  con- 
templation as  some  scholars  have  im- 
agined. Indeed,  there  is  room  for 
the  suspicion  that  in  respect  of  theii 
relative  prevalence  and  influence  in 
the  antique  world  generally  recent 
judgment  has  been  inclined  to  an 
overestimate;  certainly  the  limited  ex- 
tent to  which  they  figure  in  patristic 
literature  does  not  testify  to  a  very  vital 
conception  of  their  importance.  We 
do  not  say  that  the  patristic  measure 
was  the  true  one,  but  simply  raise 
the  question  whether  somewhat  of  a 
tendency   to   an   overdrawn   estimate 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  93 

may  not  have  gained  currency  in 
recent  scholarship.  Doubtless  the  fu- 
sion of  Greek  and  Oriental  constituents, 
following  the  conquests  of  Alexander, 
marked  an  important  era  in  the  his- 
tory of  religion.  But  it  is  quite  possi- 
ble to  take  too  little  account  of  the 
compromising  features  which  limited 
the  acceptability  of  any  specific  product 
of  the  fusion  in  the  sphere  both  of 
Hellenic  culture  and  of  Jewish  re- 
ligious training. 

It  has  been  indicated  that  the 
measure  of  Paul's  indebtedness  to  the 
Mystery  Religions  for  his  terms  is  by 
no  means  a  certain  index  of  his  obli- 
gations for  characteristic  ideas.  He 
might  very  well  have  been  too  rich 
in  ideas  to  need  to  borrow  at  all, 
while  yet  he  was  measurably  dependent 
for  the  terms  in  which  he  might  give 
the  ideas  appropriate  and  effective 
expression. 


94  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

Two  things  invite  to  skepticism  in 
relation  to  the  supposition  that  Paul 
owed  any  appreciable  debt  to  the 
Mystery  Religions  as  respects  his 
fundamental  ideas.  In  the  first  place, 
the  sphere  of  Christian  truth  stood 
for  him  as  the  sphere  of  light  and 
reality  over  against  the  darkness,  fool- 
ishness, and  vanity  of  Gentile  re- 
ligion. Emphatic  declarations  in  his 
epistles  make  it  evident  that  he  never 
could  have  dreamed  of  going  into 
the  latter  domain  for  any  part  of 
his  theological  furnishing.14  The  sup- 
position of  conscious  recourse  to  that 
province  is  simply  preposterous. 

In  the  second  place,  whatever  re- 
semblances can  be  traced  between 
Paul's  characteristic  ideas  and  various 
phases  in  the  scheme  of  the  Mysteries, 
they  differ  in  fact  so  widely  that 
ample  proof  is  given  that  he  did  not 


"  Rom.  1.  21ff.,  iii.  1,  2;  1  Cor.  i.  21,  iii.  19;  Gal.  iv.  8,  9;  Eph. 
v.  8;  1  These,  iv.  5. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  95 

either  consciously  or  unconsciously  take 
over  into  his  own  system  any  ruling 
conceptions  from  the  latter.  Much  of 
what  was  said  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ter on  similarities  and  contrasts  is 
pertinent  here.  The  similarities  of 
Pauline  representations  to  those  of 
the  Mystery  cults  are  explicable  apart 
from  any  supposition  of  borrowing, 
and  they  are  accompanied  by  very 
pronounced  contrasts.  The  given  cults, 
it  is  admitted,  made  much  of  a  future 
and  immortal  life.  But  how  could 
Paul,  as  a  believer  in  the  Jesus  who 
taught  the  doctrine  of  a  vital  immor- 
tality and  who  rose  from  the  dead, 
fail  to  magnify  this  theme?  Jesus  gave 
the  incomparable  credential  of  im- 
mortality in  his  warmly  colored  and 
penetrating  exposition  of  the  Father- 
hood of  God  and  his  ideal  illustration 
of  the  filial  relation  to  him.  Life  and 
immortality  were  brought  to  light  in 
him   by   the   very   type   of   religious 


96  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

consciousness  which  he  manifested  and 
with  which  he  inspired  his  followers.' 
Paul  was  true  to  a  dominant  note  in 
his  Master's  teaching  when  he  spoke 
of  the  inward  attestation  of  sonship 
toward  God,  and  argued,  "If  children, 
then  heirs,  heirs  of  God,  and  joint 
heirs  with  Jesus  Christ. "  With  this 
point  of  view,  intrinsic  to  the  Gospel, 
in  his  possession,  what  need  had  he 
to  kindle  the  torch  of  his  faith  at 
the  lesser  flame  of  the  Mysteries? 
Their  dramatic  expedients  for  working 
up  the  hope  of  a  blessed  hereafter 
were  paltry  and  inefficacious  compared 
with  the  grounds  of  confidence  laid 
for  him  in  the  vital  message  and 
triumphant  experiences  of  Him  on 
whom  he  believed. 

A  second  point  of  resemblance  is 
admitted.  The  Mystery  Religions  gave 
considerable  scope  to  the  idea  of  an 
intimate  relation  between  the  initiate 
and  the  divinity  in  whose  name  the 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  97 

mystic  rites  were  celebrated.  But 
what  need  had  Paul  to  draw  on  them 
for  a  lively  conception  of  the  privilege 
of  personal  communion  with  his  Lord? 
His  individual  experiences  were  in- 
finitely more  potent  than  any  sug- 
gestions which  could  come  from  that 
quarter.  As  often  as  he  thought  of 
the  way  in  which  he  had  been  met 
on  the  Damascus  road  he  was  over- 
whelmed with  a  sense  of  the  un- 
merited grace  which  had  been  visited 
upon  himself.  That  transforming  rev- 
elation constituted  the  initial  event 
in  a  chain  of  experiences  which  mag- 
nified the  love  of  God  in  Christ  and 
brought  his  soul  into  complete  cap- 
tivity. He  felt  that  living  or  dying 
he  was  the  Lord's  and  could  entertain 
no  other  purpose  but  the  fulfillment 
of  his  perfect  will.  Out  of  this  type 
of  personal  realization  he  sketched  the 
believer's  relation  to  Christ.  The  no- 
tion   that    he   needed    to    go    to    the 


98  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

Mysteries  for  any  part  of  the  ideal 
is  nothing  less  than  grotesque. 

Over  against  these  points  of 
similarity,  and  any  others  that  might 
be  mentioned,  fundamental  contrasts 
come  into  the  account.  Reference 
has  been  made  to  the  naturalistic 
basis  in  the  Mystery  Religions  and 
to  the  overplus  of  magic  which  they 
harbored.  On  the  score  of  these  fea- 
tures it  is  impossible  to  bring  them 
into  line  with  the  Pauline  theory  of 
redemption.  What  ground  of  com- 
parison is  there  between  the  Mystery 
scheme,  with  its  gods  who  personify 
in  their  death  and  return  to  life  the 
vicissitudes  of  vegetable  and  animal 
life,  and  the  divine  economy  for  re- 
covering sinners  which  Paul  pictures 
as  the  harmonious  combination  of 
righteousness  and  grace?  Nothing 
comparable  to  Paul's  argument  in  the 
third  chapter  of  the  epistle  to  the 
Romans  is  to  be  found  in  the  Mys- 


■, 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  99 

teries.  Nothing  on  the  plane  of  the 
moral  fellowship  which  he  postulated 
between  the  believer  and  the  Crucified 
One  is  discoverable  in  their  melo- 
dramatic expedients.  The  cross  as  he 
understood  it,  with  its  profound  moral 
significance  both  for  God  and  for  man, 
has  no  counterpart  there.  Anyone 
who  can  discover  in  their  bizarre  and 
variegated  mythology  an  equivalent 
for  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion must  be  gifted  with  peculiar 
eyesight.  Paul  manifestly  discov- 
ered nothing  of  the  sort.  His  declara- 
tion that  the  message  of  redemption 
preached  by  himself  was  foolishness  to 
the  Gentiles  (1  Cor.  i.  23)  is  a  de- 
cisive evidence  that  he  was  not  aware 
that  Greek,  or  Grseco-Oriental,  theory 
had  in  any  wise  prepared  the  way 
for  the  Christian  doctrine  of  salva- 
tion through  Christ.15 

14  Compare  Burton  S.  Easton,  The  Pauline  Theology  and  Hel- 
lenism in  The  American  Journal  of  Theology,  July,  1917,  pp. 
373-376. 


100  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  QUESTION  OF  PAUL'S  IN- 
DEBTEDNESS TO  THE  MYS- 
TERY RELIGIONS  FOR  HIS 
CONCEPTIONS  OF  BAPTISM 
AND  THE  EUCHARIST 

A  writer  on  New  Testament 
themes  has  expressed  the  opinion  that 
the  high  sacramental  theory  of  bap- 
tism and  the  eucharist,  the  theory 
that  these  rites  work  ex  opere  operato 
(or  in  the  simple  virtue  of  their  ritual 
performances),1  was  held  by  Paul,  and 
was  central  in  the  Primitive  Chris- 
tianity to  which  the  Roman  empire 
began  to  be  converted.2 


1  Roman  Catholic  usage,  which  gave  currency  to  the  phrase 
ex  opere  operato,  clearly  assigns  it  this  sense.  For  the  main  evi- 
dences, the  author's  Sacerdotalism  in  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
pp.  222-224,  may  be  consulted. 

»  K.  Lake,  The  Earlier  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  pp.  213-215,  385-390. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         101 

In  dissenting  from  this  opinion  we 
may  claim  at  the  outset  that  it  is 
not  enforced  by  any  compelling  ver- 
dict of  scholarship.  The  writer  who 
penned  it  thinks,  indeed,  that  such 
a  verdict  will  soon  be  installed,  but 
he  admits  "that  many  critics  of  the 
highest  standing  among  Protestant 
theologians  would  deny  the  sound- 
ness of  the  views  enunciated,  and 
maintain  that  primitive  Christianity 
was  not  centrally  sacramental."  He 
might  have  added  that  these  critics 
by  no  means  wear  a  common  badge 
as  respects  affiliation  with  conserva- 
tism or  radicalism,  but  belong  to  di- 
verse schools.  We  choose  to  believe 
that  their  judgment  will  not  so  readily 
give  way  as  the  writer  supposes  before 
the  discovery  that  high  sacramental 
views  were  current,  to  some  extent, 
in  contemporary  Gentilism.  Proof  that 
such  views  were  present  in  the  field 
where  primitive  Christianity  wrought 


102  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

obviously  falls  very  far  short  of  a 
demonstration  that  they  were  appro- 
priated and  given  a  central  place  in 
primitive  Christianity. 

In  respect  of  baptism,  it  is  to  be 
noticed,  in  the  first  place,  that  neither 
Paul  nor  any  other  New  Testament 
writer  has  expressed  the  conviction 
that  it  works  regeneration  or  any 
other  spiritual  benefit  in  purely  passive 
subjects.  The  pronounced  token  of 
high  sacramentalism,  which  emerged 
subsequently  in  the  theory  of  bap- 
tism as  applied  to  infant  subjects, 
nowhere  appears  in  the  apostolic 
literature,  that  literature  making  no 
reference  at  least  of  a  direct  and 
unequivocal  character,  to  infant  bap- 
tism. No  appeal  can  be  made  to 
this  topic  for  convicting  Paul  of  hold- 
ing the  magical  or  ex  opere  operato 
theory  of  the  sacrament.  Possibly  it 
may  be  thought  that  in  his  reference 
to  baptism  for  the  dead  (1  Cor.  xv.  29) 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         103 

the  apostle  has  evinced  a  belief  in 
the  efficacy  of  the  rite  for  purely  passive 
subjects.  But  that  is  no  warrantable 
conclusion.  If  Paul,  for  argumentative 
effect,  assumed  the  standpoint  of  the 
objectors  whom  he  wished  to  con- 
vince— a  thing  most  probable,  as  will 
be  seen  shortly — then  he  is  not  placed 
on  record  as  believing  that  baptism 
for  the  dead  has  any  efficacy  whatever. 
In  any  case  it  is  not  in  evidence  that 
he  believed  that  the  dead  can  be 
benefited  unconditionally  by  baptism 
performed  upon  the  living  in  their 
behalf.  Nothing,  therefore,  in  the 
extant  records  justifies  the  assumption 
that  he  considered  the  rite  efficacious 
for  purely  passive  subjects. 

Coming  to  more  positive  grounds  of 
inference,  we  are  permitted  to  affirm 
that  the  ascription  of  the  high  sacra- 
mental conception  of  baptism  to  Paul 
is  incongruous  with  declarations  in 
which    he    positively    disparages    the 


104  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

ceremonial  point  of  view.  Nothing 
less  than  this  disparagement  is  in- 
volved in  the  style  of  his  references 
to  circumcision.  He  depreciates  this 
rite,  not  on  the  ground  that  it  has 
been  superseded  by  a  more  efficacious 
rite,  but  on  the  ground  that  it  be- 
longs to  an  external  range  and  bears 
no  comparison  in  respect  of  religious 
value  with  interior  or  spiritual  states 
or  transactions.  This  is  plainly  the 
import  of  such  sentences  as  the  fol- 
lowing: "He  is  not  a  Jew  which  is 
one  outwardly;  neither  is  that  cir- 
cumcision, which  is  outward  in  the 
flesh:  but  he  is  a  Jew,  which  is  one 
inwardly;  and  circumcision  is  that  of 
the  heart,  in  the  spirit,  not  in  the 
letter;  whose  praise  is  not  of  men, 
but  of  God."  "Circumcision  is  noth- 
ing, and  uncircumcision  is  nothing; 
but  the  keeping  of  the  command- 
ments of  God."  "In  Christ  Jesus 
neither  circumcision  availeth  anything, 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         105 

nor  uncircumcision,  but  faith  working 
through  love.  .  .  .  Neither  is  circum- 
cision anything,  nor  uncircumcision, 
but  a  new  creature."3  The  common 
characteristic  of  these  passages  is  the 
antipathy  which  they  reveal  to  rating 
the  external  and  ceremonial  on  any- 
thing like  a  parity  with  the  interior 
and  spiritual.  If  the  apostle  who 
penned  them  conceived  of  baptism  as 
profoundly  efficacious  in  its  own  virtue 
as  a  ritual  transaction,  he  must  have 
been  an  adept  in  self-contradiction. 
And  these  passages  do  not  stand  alone, 
but  are  in  line  with  an  ample  series 
of  instructions  which  powerfully  stress 
the  incomparable  and  unqualified  ne- 
cessity of  those  interior  dispositions 
which  came  to  manifestation  in  Christ. 
It  is  certainly  not  the  voice  of  the 
ceremonialist  that  we  hear  in  words 
like  these:  "If  any  man  hath  not  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  his.  .  .  . 

s  Rom.  ii.  28,  29;  1  Cor.  vii.  19;  Gal.  v.  6,  vi.  15. 


100  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  these  are  the  sons  of  God."4 
"If  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed 
the  poor,  and  if  I  give  my  body  to 
be  burned,  but  have  not  love,  it 
profiteth  me  nothing."  "I  have  been 
crucified  with  Christ;  yet  I  live;  and 
yet  no  longer  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in 
me;  and  that  life  which  I  now  live  in 
the  flesh  I  live  in  faith,  the  faith  which 
is  in  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me, 
and  gave  himself  up  for  me."5  Quite 
in  harmony  with  this  supreme  stress 
on  an  interior  life  realized  through 
heart  appropriation  of  the  gospel  mes- 
sage is  the  apostle's  characterization 
of  his  vocation.  "Christ  sent  me," 
he  says,  "not  to  baptize,  but  to 
preach  the  gospel"  (1  Cor.  i.  17). 
Had  he  attached  to  baptism  the  virtue 
which  is  ascribed  to  it  in  the  high 
sacramental    theory,    he    would    nat- 


*  Rom.  viii.  9,  14;  1  Cor.  xiii.  3. 
6  Gal.  ii.  20. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         107 

urally  have  had  very  little  inclination 
to  mention  what  must  have  seemed 
a  strange  and  injurious  limitation  of 
his  calling. 

The  standpoint  of  Paul,  as  involving 
a  limited  efficacy  of  baptism,  is  indi- 
cated very  distinctly  by  the  over- 
whelming emphasis  which  he  places 
upon  faith  as  the  condition  of  justi- 
fication. It  is  a  foremost  thesis  with 
him  that  justification  is  attained  by 
faith.6  "The  gospel,"  he  declares,  "is 
the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to 
every  one  that  belie veth.  .  .  .  For 
therein  is  revealed  a  righteousness  of 
God  by  faith  unto  faith :  as  it  is  written, 
But  the  righteous  shall  live  by  faith." 
"With  the  heart  man  belie  veth  unto 
righteousness."  The  Spirit  is  received 
by  "the  hearing  of  faith,"  and  it  is 
by  the  instrumentality  of  faith  that 
Christ  is  made  to  dwell  in  the  heart.7 


•  Rom.  iii.  21,  22,  28,  iv.  3,  5,  v.  1,  ix.  30,  32;  Gal.  iii.  11,    24; 
Eph.  ii.  8. 

7  Rom.  i.  16,  17,  x.  10;  Gal.  iii.  2;  Eph.  iii.  17. 


108  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

Now,  for  one  who  makes  so  much  of 
the  primacy  and  necessity  of  faith  in 
the  appropriation  of  salvation,  what 
in  plain  logic  can  be  the  office  of  bap- 
tism? Is  it  conceivable  that  it  can 
be  regarded  as  having  any  virtue 
whatever  independently  of  antecedent 
and  accompanying  faith?  Can  it  pos- 
sibly be  accounted  anything  more  than 
a  fitting  accessory  to  faith  as  giving 
to  it  open  manifestation  and  attesting 
the  wish  and  the  will  of  its  subject 
to  be  numbered  with  Christian  be- 
lievers? These  questions,  we  are  con- 
fident, must  be  answered  in  the 
negative.  Either  Paul  was  glaringly 
illogical,  or  he  must  have  rated  bap- 
tism as  distinctly  secondary  to  such 
a  spiritual  condition  as  faith,  and 
must  have  regarded  it  as  totally  desti- 
tute of  saving  efficacy  in  the  absence 
of  that  indispensable  condition.  That 
it  is  not  necessary  to  choose  the 
former  alternative  will  appear  from  a 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         109 

glance  at  the  few  references  to  baptism 
which  occur  in  the  Pauline  Epistles. 

It  is  noticeable  that  in  the  great 
dogmatic  epistle  to  the  Romans  the 
subject  of  baptism  is  broached  in  but 
a  single  instance,  and  that  in  this 
instance  the  motive  for  its  introduc- 
tion is  homiletical  rather  than  dog- 
matic. The  passage  reads,  " Shall  we 
continue  in  sin  that  grace  may  abound? 
God  forbid!  We  who  died  to  sin, 
how  shall  we  any  longer  live  therein? 
Or  are  ye  ignorant  that  all  ye  who 
were  baptized  into  Christ  Jesus  were 
baptized  into  his  death?  We  were 
buried  therefore  with  him  through 
baptism  into  death.  .  .  .  Even  so  reckon 
ye  also  yourselves  to  be  dead  unto 
sin,  but  alive  unto  God  in  Christ 
Jesus' '  (Rom.  vi.  1-4,  11).  The  mo- 
tive underlying  the  passage,  as  we 
have  said,  is  plainly  homiletical.  Paul 
wishes  to  give  his  readers  a  vivid 
impression   of   the   inconsistency  into 


110  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

which  they  would  fall  if  they  should 
make  light  of  sin  after  undergoing 
the  rite  in  which  purification  from  sin, 
or  death  to  sin,  was  figured.  Not 
what  baptism  in  its  own  virtue  effected, 
but  what  it  was  understood  to  repre- 
sent or  symbolize,  was  the  pertinent 
point  of  view.  At  least,  it  is  perfectly 
gratuitous  to  attach  any  larger  sense 
to  the  passage.  The  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  affords  no  proper  ground  for 
charging  that  the  apostle  ran  into 
radical  self-contradiction  by  assuming 
an  outward  ceremony  intrinsically  effi- 
cacious or  working  ex  opere  operato. 

It  has  been  observed  by  one  or 
another  reviewer  that  Paul's  repre- 
sentation of  burial  with  Christ  in 
baptism  has  a  certain  analogy  to  the 
assumption  in  the  Mystery  Religions 
that  the  initiate,  in  the  performance 
of  the  ritual,  in  some  sort  repeats  the 
experience  of  the  god  who  is  being 
commemorated.     The  analogy  is  not 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         111 

to  be  denied.  But  that  Paul  derived 
from  his  knowledge  of  the  Mysteries 
an  incentive  to  the  symbolism  in 
question  strikes  us  as  problematical. 
A  mind  so  alert  as  that  of  the  apostle, 
and  so  dominated  with  the  thought 
and  feeling  of  mystical  union  with 
Christ,  might  easily  have  gravitated, 
without  exterior  impulsion,  into  the 
employment  of  the  given  baptismal 
figure.  In  any  event,  there  is  the 
scantiest  sort  of  occasion  to  imagine 
chat  he  took  over  a  notion  of  cere- 
monial efficacy  that  is  glaringly  con- 
tradictory to  his  explicit  teachings. 

If  the  context  of  the  statement 
relative  to  baptism  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans  negatives  the  demand  for 
a  high  sacramental  theory,  the  same 
is  true  of  the  text  in  Galatians.  We 
read  here:  "Ye  are  all  sons  of  God, 
through  faith,  in  Christ  Jesus.  For  as 
many  of  you  as  were  baptized  into 
Christ  did  put  on  Christ"  (iii.  26,  27). 


112  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

The  first  of  these  sentences  makes 
faith  the  condition  of  sonship,  and 
thus  assigns  to  it  the  primacy  which 
it  has  customarily  in  the  apostle's 
discourse.  Is  it  to  be  supposed  that 
this  function  of  faith  is  ignored  in 
the  following  sentence,  and  that  bap- 
tism, as  a  mere  sacramental  per- 
formance, is  counted  efficacious  for  the 
putting  on  of  Christ?  Let  any  one, 
who  can,  believe  the  apostle  guilty 
of  such  a  foolish  collocation  of  con- 
tradictory statements.  The  gist  of 
his  discourse  is  clear  enough.  He 
makes  the  legal  dispensation  and  the 
dispensation  of  grace  in  Christ  anti- 
thetic, the  one  being  associated  with 
servitude  and  the  other  with  freedom. 
He  reminds  the  Galatians  that  they 
are  no  longer  in  the  estate  of  servitude, 
but  through  faith  in  Christ  have  be- 
come sons  of  God.  To  clinch  this 
point  of  view  he  reminds  them  of 
their  public  act  in  receiving  baptism, 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         113 

as  being  an  acknowledgment  that 
they  belonged  to  the  Christ  who  stood 
for  the  dispensation  of  grace  and 
freedom,  and  so  could  not  consistently 
locate  themselves  under  the  old  legal 
dispensation.  The  point  of  emphasis 
is  not  what  baptism  in  its  own  virtue 
accomplishes,  but  the  relation  of  union 
with  Christ  which  baptism,  where  the 
requisite  spiritual  conditions  are  ful- 
filled, attests. 

Such  general  references  to  baptism 
as  are  contained  in  1  Cor.  vi.  11, 
Col.  ii.  12,  and  Eph.  v.  26  leave  room 
for  the  limitations  upon  the  efficacy 
of  baptism  which  are  logically  implied 
in  the  fundamental  teachings  of  Paul. 
Relative  to  the  Ephesian  text  Kennedy 
remarks:  'The  notion  of  a  baptism  of 
the  txxXYiGia  is  plainly  metaphorical. 
The  most  notable  feature  in  the  pas- 
sage is  the  phrase  sv  popart,  which  no 
doubt  must  be  interpreted,  as  in 
Romans  x.  8,  17,  of  the  proclamation 


114  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

of  the  gospel.  This  accords  with  the 
place  given  to  faith  in  the  other  pas- 
sages on  baptism  which  we  have 
examined."8 

The  peculiar  remark  on  baptism 
for  the  dead,  1  Cor.  xv.  29,  remains 
to  be  considered.  Here  the  comments 
of  Meyer  cover  so  well  the  essential 
points  that  we  cannot  do  better  than 
to  reproduce  his  principal  statements. 
"That  a  baptism  of  such  a  kind  effected 
anything,"  he  says,  "was  assuredly  a 
thought  foreign  to  the  apostle.  He 
wished  to  point  out  the  subjective 
absurdity  of  the  procedure  in  the  case 
assumed.  .  .  .  The  custom  propagated 
and  maintained  itself  afterward  only 
among  heretical  sects,  in  particular 
among  the  Cerinthians  and  among 
the  Marcionites. .  .  .  The  usual  objec- 
tion, that  Paul  could  not  have  em- 
ployed for  his  purpose  at  all,  or  at 


8  St.  Paul  and  the  Mystery  Religions,  p.  252. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         115 

least  not  without  adding  some  censure, 
such  an  abuse  founded  on  the  belief 
in  a  magical  power  of  baptism,  is  not 
conclusive,  for  Paul  may  be  arguing 
ex  concesso,  and  hence  may  allow  the 
relation  of  the  matter  to  evangelical 
faith  to  remain  undetermined  in  the 
meantime,  seeing  that  it  does  not 
belong  to  the  proper  subject  of  his 
present  discourse.  The  abuse  must 
afterward  have  been  condemned  by 
apostolic  teachers  (hence  it  maintained 
itself  only  among  heretics),  and  no 
doubt  Paul  too  aided  in  the  work  of 
its  removal."9  Of  course  no  direct 
proof  exists  that  Paul  disapproved  of 
baptism  for  the  dead.  But  the  indirect 
evidence  has  no  little  cogency.  The 
absence  of  any  trace  of  the  custom 
in  Catholic  Christendom  in  post- 
apostolic  times  speaks  decidedly  for 
the  conclusion  that  it  could  not  have 


9  Critical   and   Exegetical   Handbook   on   the   Epistles   to   the 
Corinthians,  pp.  364,  365. 


116  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

enjoyed  the  sanction  of  the  apostle  who 
surpassed  all  others  in  the  extent  of 
his  field  of  labor.  If  we  conjoin  with 
this  consideration  the  anti-ceremonial 
trend  of  a  great  part  of  Paul's  teaching, 
the  reasonable  inference  is  that  the 
Corinthian  text  is  to  be  construed  as 
rather  shrewdly  employed  to  confound 
opponents  than  as  representative  of 
the  apostle's  own  belief.10 

In  arguing  against  the  indictment 
of  the  apostle  as  a  propagator  of 
the  high  sacramental  theory  of  bap- 
tism, it  is  not  our  intention  to  claim 
that  it  had  precisely  the  same  sig- 
nificance for  him  which  it  has  for  the 
great  body  of  Protestant  believers  un- 
der  the   usual   conditions   in   modern 


10  Compare  Clemen,  Primitive  Christianity  and  its  Non-Jewish 
Sources,  p.  219.  The  above  exposition  proceeds  on  the  supposition 
that  proxy  baptism  is  referred  to  in  1  Cor.  xv.  29.  It  is  perhaps 
incumbent  on  us  to  notice  that  this  interpretation  is  not  universally 
accepted.  Robertson  and  Plummer,  for  instance,  suggest  that 
persons  who  were  persuaded  to  accept  baptism  out  of  affection 
for  friends  who  had  died  as  Christians  might  reasonably  be  desig- 
nated as  "those  who  receive  baptism  in  behalf  of  the  dead"  (Inter- 
national Critical  Commentary). 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         117 

times.  In  the  apostolic  era  baptism 
marked  a  great  crisis  in  the  life  of 
the  convert.  It  often,  if  not,  indeed, 
customarily,  followed  closely  upon  the 
exercise  of  faith  in  Christ.  It  thus 
had  a  vital  importance  as  a  completing 
act  in  the  appropriation  of  Christian- 
ity. It  stamped  the  convert  as  an 
initiate  into  a  new  world,  and  doubt- 
less was  frequently  attended  by  an 
increment  of  the  new  life.  Under  such 
conditions  it  was  naturally  given  a 
somewhat  closer  association  with  the 
positive  beginning  of  the  Christian 
life  than  obtains  in  case  of  subjects 
who  have  grown  up  in  Christian  com- 
munities. That  Paul's  estimate  of 
baptism  was  in  some  degree  affected 
by  the  special  conditions  it  is  not  at 
all  necessary  to  deny.  What  is  to  be 
denied  is  that  he  estimated  baptism 
after  the  mode  of  a  pronounced  sacra- 
mentalism,  attaching  to  it  an  inde- 
pendent   virtue,    or    regarding    it    as 


118  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

working   the   renewal   of   its   subjects 
ex  opere  operato, 

Paul  refers  directly  to  the  eucharist 
in  only  two  passages — 1  Cor.  x.  16-21, 
xi.  20-34.  An  indirect  reference  has 
been  supposed  by  some  to  be  con- 
tained in  1  Cor.  x.  3,  4.  In  the  first 
mentioned  passage  he  styles  the  cup 
which  is  blessed  a  communion  of  the 
blood  of  Christ,  and  the  bread  which 
is  broken  a  communion  of  the  body 
of  Christ,  and  reprobates  the  notion 
that  it  is  permissible  for  Christians 
who  share  in  this  order  of  communion 
to  enter  into  communion  with  pagan 
altars  and  divinities  by  knowingly 
eating  of  things  which  have  been  offered 
to  idols.  In  the  second  of  the  pas- 
sages mentioned  he  rebukes  certain 
disorders  which  had  invaded  the  sa- 
cred feast  as  observed  by  the  Cor- 
inthians, repeats  the  words  ascribed 
to  Jesus  in  connection  with  the  Last 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         119 

Supper,  emphasizes  the  memorial  char- 
acter of  the  eucharistic  rite  as  showing 
forth  the  Lord's  death  till  he  comes, 
and  warns  against  sacrilege  by  declar- 
ing, " whosoever  shall  eat  the  bread 
or  drink  the  cup  unworthily  shall  be 
guilty  of  the  body  and  blood  of  the 
Lord."  In  the  remaining  passage  ref- 
erence is  made  to  the  experience  of 
Israel  in  the  wilderness,  where  as  par- 
takers of  the  manna  they  all  did  eat 
the  same  spiritual  meat,  and  as  re- 
freshed by  the  water  gushing  from  the 
rock  they  drank  of  the  same  spiritual 
drink,  the  rock  which  followed  them 
being  Christ.  In  these  three  passages 
is  contained  all  the  evidence  which 
can  be  adduced  from  the  writings  of 
Paul  in  an  attempt  to  convict  him 
of  borrowing  from  the  Mystery  Re- 
ligions the  conception  of  a  real  eating 
of  the  body  and  a  real  drinking  of 
the  blood  of  Christ. 
Against  the  supposition  of  such  bor- 


120  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

rowing  it  can  be  urged,  in  the  first 
place,  that  there  are  legitimate  grounds 
of  doubt  as  to  the  presence  in  the 
contemporary  Mysteries  of  that  which 
is  supposed  to  have  been  borrowed. 
Accounts  of  sacramental  meals  as 
parts  of  the  mystic  program  are  con- 
fessedly very  scanty.11  According  to 
Farnell  there  is  no  sign  that  the 
initiated  at  Eleusis  believed  that  they 
were  partaking  through  food  of  the 
divine  substance  of  their  divinity,  and 
though  this  conception  appears  else- 
where sporadically  in  ancient  ritual, 
"it  is  by  no  means  so  frequent  that 
we  could  assume  it  in  any  given  case 
without  evidence."12  "The  alleged 
instances,"  says  Moffatt,  "of  wor- 
shipers in  the  cults  sharing  in  the 
life  of  the  deity  by  partaking  of  him 
in  a  meal  are  distant,  late,  and  du- 


"Dieterich,  Eine  Mithrasliturgie,  pp.  102ff.;  Reitzenstein,  Die 
Hellenistieche  Mysterienreligionen. 
»  The  Cults  of  the  Greek  States,  III,  196. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         121 

bious."13  Carl  Clemen  remarks  that 
we  hear  of  sacred  meals  in  the  most 
varied  Mysteries,  but  have  no  in- 
formation about  the  partaking  in  them 
of  the  divinity.14  Percy  Gardner  re- 
pudiates the  supposition  that  Paul 
can  properly  be  placed  on  a  level  with 
those  who  have  held  to  the  notion  of 
a  real  eating  of  the  divinity,  and  adds, 
"In  fact,  in  his  time  we  cannot  trace 
in  any  of  the  more  respectable  forms 
of  heathen  religion  a  survival  of  the 
practice  of  eating  the  deity.15  It 
would  seem,  then,  that  a  main  premise 
is  wanting  for  the  establishment  of 
the  conclusion  that  Paul  took  over 
from  the  Mystery  Religions  a  thor- 
oughly realistic  view  and  applied  it 
to  the  eucharistic  feast.  Distinct  proof 
fails  to  appear  that  this  view  was  at 
hand,    at    least    in    such    form    and 


u  The  Expositor,  July,  1913. 

14  Der  EinfluBS  der  Myeterienreligionen  auf  das  alttste  Christen- 
tum,  p.  55. 

16  The  Religious  Experience  of  St.  Paul,  p.  121. 


122  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

connection  as  would  have  been 
likely  to  exercise  any  attraction  upon 
the  mind  of  the  apostle.  That  he 
should  have  been  favorably  impressed 
by  a  Dionysiac  orgy — supposing  such 
a  rite  to  have  been  in  vogue  in  his 
neighborhood — is  not  conceivable.16 

In  the  second  place,  as  was  illus- 
trated at  some  length  in  connection 
with  the  topic  of  baptism,  the  pre- 
dominant emphasis  which  Paul  placed 
upon  the  spiritual  conditions  of  re- 
ligious benefits  and  attainments  makes 
it  incredible  that  he  could  have  held 
the  alleged  realistic  view  of  the  euchar- 
ist.  He  who  spoke  of  Christ  as  dwell- 
ing in  the  heart  by  faith,  who  declared 
that  any  eating  which  is  not  of  faith 


18  In  the  cult  of  Osiris  some  sort  of  recognition  may  have  been 
given  to  a  partaking  of  the  god  (A.  Moret,  Kings  and  Gods  of 
Egypt,  pp.  97,  98).  But  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  instructed 
Egyptians  could  have  understood  in  a  literal  sense  the  vague 
reference  to  this  function  in  their  highly  symbolical  ritual.  Aa 
for  those  within  the  pale  of  Christian  teaching,  it  is  not  credible 
that  they  would  be  inclined  to  award  any  favorable  attention  to 
a  reference  of  this  kind  in  a  cult  which  they  could  but  regard  as 
based  in  extravagant  allegory,  magic,  and  mythology. , 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         123 

works  condemnation,  who  affirmed  that 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  not  eating  and 
drinking,  but  righteousness  and  peace 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  made 
bold  to  say  that  flesh  and  blood 
cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God — 
is  it  to  be  supposed  that  this  man 
thought  that  Christ  could  be  savingly 
appropriated  by  the  mere  physical 
act  of  eating  and  drinking  physical 
elements?  Well  may  any  sober-minded 
person  hesitate  to  charge  the  apostle 
with  such  superficiality  and  self-con- 
tradiction. 

In  the  third  place,  it  is  to  be  no- 
ticed that  no  one  of  the  three 
passages  mentioned  contains  a  com- 
pelling ground  for  imputing  to  Paul 
the  crass  realistic  view  of  the  euchar- 
ist.  There  is  very  slight  occasion  to 
take  the  words  of  1  Cor.  x.  3,  4  in  a 
realistic  sense,  scarcely  more  occasion 
to  do  so  than  to  conclude  that  those 
who  are  spoken  of  by  the  psalmist  as 


124  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

being  shepherded  and  made  to  lie 
down  in  green  pastures  must  be  con- 
strued as  literal  sheep  which  divided 
their  time  between  cropping  grass  and 
reclining  on  the  ground.  As  a  Jew,  or 
simply  as  a  member  of  the  human 
race,  Paul  was  not  necessarily  an  utter 
stranger  to  metaphorical  and  para- 
bolic speech.  It  is  quite  gratuitous, 
if  not  worse,  to  suppose  that  he  meant 
to  identify  Christ  with  the  manna 
or  the  rock.  The  manna  and  the 
water  gushing  from  the  rock  were 
spiritual  meat  and  drink  to  the  Israel- 
ites— to  those  who  were  sufficiently 
responsive  to  their  import — as  attest- 
ing the  grace  and  compassion  of  God 
whereof  Christ  may  be  conceived  as 
the  medium  or  channel.  That  they 
were  unconditionally  spiritual  meat 
and  drink  is  not  said;  rather  the  con- 
trary is  intimated  by  the  sequel,  for 
most  of  the  participants  fell  under  the 
displeasure    of    God    and   were    over- 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         125 

thrown  in  the  wilderness.  There  is 
no  disclosure  here  of  a  sacrament 
which  works  ex  opere  operato. 

The  point  of  emphasis  in  1  Cor.  x. 
16-21  lies  in  the  communion  (xotvayvla) 
on  the  one  hand  with  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ,  and  on  the  other 
with  the  demons  (or  gods)  who  pre- 
side over  the  sacrificial  feasts  of  the 
heathen.  A  suggestion  that  a  moral 
element  or  matter  of  personal  attitude 
enters  into  the  specified  communion 
is  indicated  by  the  apostle's  dealing 
with  it  in  its  heathen  connections.  He 
does  not  assume  that  the  mere  eating 
of  meat  offered  to  heathen  gods  or 
demons  involves  communion  with 
them.  Christians  may  eat  without 
scruple  whatever  is  sold  in  the  sham- 
bles, asking  no  question  about  its 
antecedents.  Communion  with  de- 
mons ensues  only  where  the  meat 
is  distinctly  recognized  as  affiliated 
with    the    demons   by    previous   con- 


126  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

seeration.  Eating  in  that  case  is 
derelict  as  making  one,  on  the  score 
of  his  consent,  a  table  companion  of 
demons.  As  R6ville  remarks:  "The 
apostle  here  appeals  to  the  religious 
idea  which  inspired  the  sacred  meals 
of  the  Greeks,  communion  with  the 
gods  by  the  absorption  of  a  common 
food,  belonging  to  the  gods  by  the 
fact  of  consecration.  The  xoivovia 
rtiv  Saifioviav  does  not  mean  the  ab- 
sorption of  the  flesh  of  the  demons 
any  more  than  the  xotvcdvla  tov  dvci- 
aaryjpiov  means  the  absorption  of  the 
altar.  ...  In  the  one  and  the  other 
alternative  there  is  involved  the  sol- 
idarity attested  by  the  religious  meal, 
on  the  one  hand  with  the  demons, 
on  the  other  with  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ."17  Paul  views  the 
solidarity  or  communion  with  the  de- 
mons, which  is  realized  in  the  religious 
meal,  as  ethically  conditioned  in  the 

17  Cited  by  Kennedy,  St.  Paul  and  the  Mystery  Religions,  p.  273. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT        127 

case  of  professing  Christians.  It  is 
quite  in  order  to  suppose  that  he 
regarded  communion  with  the  body 
or  the  blood  of  Christ — in  other  words, 
with  the  Christ  whose  body  was  broken 
and  whose  blood  was  shed18 — as  also 
ethically  conditioned.  In  fact,  he  ex- 
plicitly indicates  further  on  in  the 
epistle  that  this  was  his  point  of  view, 
in  that  he  speaks  of  those  who,  in 
their  careless  lack  of  consideration  for 
what  the  consecrated  elements  stand, 
eat  and  drink  judgment  unto  them- 
selves. What  we  have,  then,  in  the 
passage  on  "communion"  is  the  thought 
of  an  ethically  conditioned  fellowship 
or  solidarity  with  the  crucified  Saviour 
through  the  medium  of  a  sacred  feast. 
No   literal   eating   of   the   Christ,   no 


18  The  propriety  of  this  rendering  is  suggested  by  a  phase  of  the 
passage.  If  by  communion  with  the  altar  is  to  be  understood 
communion  with  the  God  who  is  represented  by  the  altar,  then  by 
communion  with  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  we  may  under- 
stand communion  with  the  suffering  and  dying  Christ.  That  in 
both  instances  the  sacred  person  was  regarded  as  the  real  object 
of  communion  cannot  well  be  doubted. 


128  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

sacrament  working  ex   opere  operato, 
needs  to  be  supposed. 

So  readily  does  the  remaining  pas- 
sage (1  Cor.  xi.  20-34)  lend  itself  to 
a  symbolical  interpretation,  that  it 
verily  j- has  the  appearance  of  a  tour 
de  force  to  read  into  it  any  crass 
realism.  What  is  eaten  in  the  euchar- 
istic  feast  is  spoken  of,  not  as  the 
body  of  Christ,  but  as  bread.  A 
memorial  function  is  ascribed  to  the 
eating:  it  proclaims  the  Lord's  death 
till  he  comes.  Furthermore,  as  noted 
above,  the  benefit  of  partaking  of  the 
elements  is  conditioned  on  the  appro- 
priate religious  attitude.  It  is  said, 
to  be  sure,  that  the  one  who  eats 
and  drinks  unworthily  makes  himself 
guilty  of  the  body  and  blood  of  the 
Lord.  But  these  words  are  entirely 
pertinent  in  connection  with  the  sym- 
bolical interpretation.  He  who  treats 
despitefully  the  symbol  pours  contempt 
on  the  things  symbolized,  just  as  one 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         129 

who   tramples   on   his   country's   flag 
vents  despite  upon  his  country. 

Paul's  conception  of  the  eucharist 
was  doubtless  not  of  that  type  which 
is  likely  to  be  taken  by  a  prosaic 
mind,  but,  rather,  such  as  is  congenial 
to  an  intense  poetic  soul.  He  had  a 
most  vivid  impression  of  the  reality 
of  Christ  and  of  his  intimate  presence 
in  every  Christian  function  normally 
fulfilled.  He  would  have  been  in 
pronounced  contradiction  with  him- 
self had  he  not  thought  of  the  Master 
as  being  effectively  present  with  ear- 
nest and  faith-inspired  disciples  in  the 
solemn  commemoration  of  his  passion. 
Herein  he  shows  a  certain  kinship  with 
a  view  of  the  eucharist  which  had 
much  currency  among  the  Greek  Fa- 
thers, the  view  namely  that  Christ 
in  his  spiritual  nature,  or  as  the  Logos, 
comes  into  a  relation  with  the  con- 
secrated elements  analogous  to  that 
assumed  to  the  body  appropriated  in 


130  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

his  incarnation,  thereby  imparting  to 
them  a  special  efficacy.19  The  Pauline 
view  of  the  effective  spiritual  presence 
of  Christ  in  the  eucharist  has,  we  say, 
a  degree  of  kinship  with  the  given 
patristic  conception.  But  the  kinship 
is  still  at  a  notable  remove  from 
identity.  What  Paul  emphasized  was 
not  a  special  relation  of  Christ  to  the 
consecrated  elements,  but  the  ethically 
conditioned  presence  of  Christ  to  the 
believing  recipient  of  those  elements. 

19  Gieseler,  Dogmengeschichte,  p.  411;  Schweitzer,  Paxil  and  His 
Interpreters,  pp.  200,  201.  Compare  A.  Lagarde,  The  Latin 
Church  in  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  51. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         131 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  QUESTION  OF  THE  IN- 
DEBTEDNESS OF  THE  JOHAN- 
NINE  WRITINGS,  AND  OF 
OTHER  PORTIONS  OF  THE 
NEW  TESTAMENT,  TO  THE 
MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

By  the  Johannine  writings  in  this 
connection  we  denote  the  fourth  Gospel 
and  the  epistles  (especially  the  first) 
bearing  the  name  of  John.  On  the 
authorship  of  the  Apocalypse  no  pro- 
nouncement is  designed.  A  separate 
treatment  is  appropriate  to  it  on 
account  of  its  special  character. 

Among  preliminary  considerations 
the  Jewish  lineage  of  the  author  of 
the  fourth  Gospel  and  the  Johannine 
Epistles  is  worthy  of  note.  The  fact 
that  he  was  of  Jewish  birth  and  train- 
ing   is    commonly    admitted.      Good 


132  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

evidence  appears  in  the  language  of 
the  Gospel.  The  construction  betrays 
the  Hebrew  antecedents  of  the  writer. 
The  sentences  are  for  the  most  part 
coordinated,  not  subordinated.  Of  gen- 
uine Greek  period-building  scarcely  a 
trace  is  to  be  found.1  The  tenor  of 
the  contents  bears  witness  to  like 
antecedents.  While  the  evangelist 
thinks  of  contemporary  Jews  as  irre- 
concilable opponents  of  the  Christian 
faith,  he  takes  a  high  view  of  the 
historic  vocation  of  Judaism.  Christ 
is  represented  as  claiming  that  salva- 
tion is  from  the  Jews,  and  as  coming 
to  his  own  proper  possession  in  his 
advent  to  the  Jews.  Much  care  is 
exhibited  to  join  events  in  the  life 
of  Christ  with  Old  Testament  texts. 
In  fine,  the  evidence  is  decisive  for  the 
Jewish  lineage  of  the  evangelist.  More- 
over, there  are  fairly  substantial  rea- 
sons for  supposing  him  to  have  been 

1  Wetzel,  Die  Echtheit  des  Evangeliuma  Johannis,  p.  36. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         133 

a  Palestinian  resident.  His  accurate 
knowledge  of  Palestinian  localities  is 
best  explained  on  this  ground.1  It  is 
much  more  likely  that  he  came  to 
that  knowledge  as  a  resident,  favored 
with  repeated  opportunities  for  ob- 
servation, than  as  one  who  had  simply 
made  a  fugitive  tour  through  the  land. 
Now  antecedents  of  this  kind  have 
something  more  than  an  indifferent 
bearing  on  our  theme.  We  are  en- 
titled to  suppose  in  the  author  of  the 
Johannine  writings  as  substantial  bar- 
riers to  an  appreciative  attitude  toward 
the  Mystery  Religions  as  Jewish  de- 
scent and  training  could  furnish.2 

A  second  preliminary  consideration, 
having  distinct  pertinency,  is  the  rela- 
tion of  the  Johannine  writings  to  the 
Pauline.  Admittedly  the  latter  were 
influential  antecedents  of  the  former. 
However   much    they    may    differ   in 

2  "I  imagine,"  says  Moffatt,  "that  the  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel 
would  not  have  failed  to  sympathize  with  Philo's  passionate 
aversion  to  all  Mystery  Religions"  (The  Expositor,  July,  1913). 


134  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

respect  of  form,  their  close  affinity  in 
vital  doctrinal  points  is  beyond  dis- 
pute. Even  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos, 
as  Professor  Bacon  rightly  claims,3  is 
already  present  in  all  but  name,  in 
the  Pauline  Epistles.  In  so  far,  then, 
as  the  points  in  the  writings  of  Paul, 
which  have  been  supposed  to  align 
his  teachings  with  the  Mystery  Re- 
ligions, are  substantially  reproduced  in 
the  Johannine  writings,  sufficient  his- 
torical antecedents  are  assigned  them. 
There  is  no  need  to  discover  in  them 
the  influential  working  of  the  pagan 
cults,  which  undoubtedly  their  author 
regarded  quite  as  unfavorably  as  did 
his  apostolic  predecessor.  Now,  the 
points  of  alignment  which  are  capable 
of  being  specified  between  the  Johan- 
nine writings  and  the  Mystery  Re- 
ligions are  not  appreciably  different 
from  those  which  are  alleged  to  per- 
tain to  the   Pauline  writings.     It  is 

3  The  Fourth  Gospel  in  Research  and  Debate,  pp.  5,  6. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         135 

indeed  our  conviction  that  not  a  single 
specific  point  can  be  mentioned  as 
belonging  to  the  former  which  is  not 
discoverable  in  the  latter.  With  this 
conclusion  it  is  doubtless  possible  to 
combine  the  view  that  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Johannine  writings  is  more 
pervasively  tinged  with  the  Mysteries 
than  is  that  of  the  Pauline.  But  a 
verdict  to  this  effect  has  not  been 
brought  in  by  a  unanimous  jury. 
A  dissenting  voice  may  be  heard  in 
these  words  of  Ramsay:  "We  cannot 
regard  John's  Gospel  as  specially  com- 
prehensible to  the  Gentiles,  though 
it  was  written  in  Asia  for  Asiatic 
Hellenes.  It  is  deeply  Palestinian  in 
its  cast  of  thought  and  expression; 
and  the  religious  atmosphere  in  which 
it  moves  is  non-Hellenic  to  a  greater 
degree  than  the  writings  of  Paul/'4 
The  distinguished  student  of  Pauline 
lore    may    possibly   be    challenged    in 

4  The  Teaching  of  Paul  in  Terms  of  the  Present  Day,  p.  50. 


136  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

respect  of  this  statement.  Firm 
ground,  however,  remains  for  the  con- 
tention that  a  substantially  full  com- 
plement of  the  ideas  supposedly  affil- 
iating with  the  Mysteries,  which  can 
be  discovered  in  the  Johannine  writ- 
ings, is  discoverable  in  the  Pauline 
Epistles.  The  Johannine  writer  could 
have  taken  them  from  that  quarter 
if  he  needed  to  borrow  them  at  all. 
Of  course,  if  Paul  took  them  from 
the  Mystery  Religions,  ultimate  obli- 
gation to  that  source,  on  the  part 
of  the  Johannine  writer,  is  not  dis- 
proved. But  it  has  been  our  attempt 
in  previous  chapters  to  show  that 
Paul's  obligations  were  inconsiderable. 
The  point  of  the  present  paragraph 
is  therefore  made  with  entire  consis- 
tency. 

In  their  doctrine  of  Christ's  person 
and  saving  office  the  Johannine  writings 
may  not  locate  the  emphasis  just 
where   it   was   placed   by   Paul;   but 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT        137 

sufficient  antecedents  for  all  the  ele- 
ments of  the  doctrine  were  furnished 
by  the  Pauline  teaching.  That  teach- 
ing was  an  incomparably  more  fertile 
source  of  suggestion  than  the  Mystery 
Religions  could  possibly  have  been. 
It  is  an  historical  illusion  which  per- 
mits one  to  suppose  that  a  writer  of 
Jewish  lineage  and  training  could  have 
felt  the  least  motive  to  draw  from 
them.  The  attitude  of  the  Evangelist 
was  not  and  could  not  have  been  any- 
thing like  that  of  the  twentieth-cen- 
tury student  who  enforces  himself  to 
sympathize  with  all  the  varied  mani- 
festations of  religion.  Had  he  been 
interested  to  look  into  any  one  of 
the  contemporary  Mysteries,  he  would 
have  seen  in  it  nothing  better  than  a 
heap  of  fantastic  mythological  fancies. 
His  verdict  would  have  been  quite 
as  scornful  at  least  as  was  that  which 
the  broad-minded  Alexandrian  Clem- 
ent in  his  day  passed  upon  the  Mystery 


138  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

cults.5  For  the  essential  trend  of 
New  Testament  Christology  and  so- 
teriology  an  adequate  source  can  be 
found  entirely  apart  from  recourse  to 
cults  so  obnoxious  to  the  minds  of 
New  Testament  writers.  The  powerful 
impression  made  by  the  teaching,  life, 
death,  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ, 
combined  with  the  ideal  pictures  in 
the  Prophets  and  the  higher  view  of 
the  Messiah  in  later  Judaism,  are 
reasonably  regarded  as  sufficient  his- 
torical factors,  when  impinging  upon 
such  deep  and  impressionable  souls  as 
those  of  the  apostle  Paul  and  the 
fourth  evangelist,  to  bring  forth  the 
Christological  and  soteriological  con- 
tent. The  conception  of  the  Logos,  as 
developed  in  Greek  philosophy,  was 
indeed  fitted  to  serve  as  an  auxiliary 
in  respect  of  formulating  Christological 
belief;   but  the  belief  itself  was  not 


5  Address  to  the  Greeks,  chap.  ii.     Compare  Minucius  Felix, 
Octavius,  chap.  xxi. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         139 

dependent  upon  the  contributions  of 
philosophy. 

The  Johannine  writings  are  relatively 
distinguished  by  their  valuation  of 
knowledge.  This  feature  has  been 
supposed  to  be  a  token  of  contact 
with  the  Mystery  Religions.  In  par- 
ticular the  rating  of  the  vision  of  God 
as  the  culmination  of  enhghtenment 
and  the  supreme  means  of  trans- 
formation into  the  divine  likeness  has 
been  emphasized  as  a  mark  of  inter- 
connection. But  closely  examined,  the 
point  of  view  in  the  Johannine  writings 
is  found  to  be  materially  different  from 
that  of  the  Mysteries.  In  the  former 
knowledge  is  conceived  as  ethically 
conditioned  in  the  most  thorough 
sense;  in  the  latter  the  ethical  con- 
dition is  radically  obscured,  not  to 
say  obliterated,  by  the  scope  which 
is  given  to  magic.  In  the  former  the 
vision  of  God  comes  from  intimate 
spiritual  fellowship  with  him.     Every 


140  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

one  who  hopes  for  it  purifies  himself 
even  as  he  is  pure.  In  the  latter  it 
is  pictured  as  the  result  of  an  ecstatic 
uplift  which  serves  as  a  means  of 
momentary  divine  disclosure.  The  in- 
ference seems  to  be  well  grounded  that 
the  evangelist  was  too  well  instructed 
to  take  any  lesson  on  this  subject 
from  the  Mystery  Religions.  He  agrees 
doubtless  with  their  underlying  sup- 
position that  divine  revelation  is  the 
authentic  source  of  knowledge.  There 
is  no  need,  however,  to  imagine  that 
he  falls  in  with  the  supposition  be- 
cause it  was  harbored  by  them.  As 
a  Hebrew  he  was  legitimately  heir  to 
it,  and  it  was  an  outstanding  assump- 
tion with  his  predecessor,  the  apostle 
Paul.  Possibly  the  evangelist  dis- 
coursed on  knowledge  somewhat  more 
fully  than  he  would  otherwise  have 
done,  owing  to  the  occasion  to  present 
an  offset  to  the  Gnosticism  which  had 
begun  to  invade  the  Christian  domain. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         141 

Assuredly,  no  more  effective  expedient 
against  Gnostic  propagandises  could 
have  been  devised  than  the  Johannine 
procedure,  in  which  knowledge  is  at 
once  honored  and  set  in  right  relations. 
A  representation  analogous  to  the 
Johannine  antithesis  between  the  seen 
and  temporal  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  unseen  and  eternal  on  the  other 
undoubtedly  had  place  in  the  Hellenic 
domain.  In  that  domain,  however, 
by  far  the  most  prominent  and  influ- 
ential setting  forth  of  the  antithesis 
occurred  within  the  limits  of  the  Pla- 
tonic philosophy.  If  the  fourth  Evan- 
gelist must  be  accounted  a  debtor  for 
this  feature  in  his  teaching,  there  is 
still  very  slight  occasion  to  regard 
him  as  a  debtor  specifically  to  the 
Mystery  Religions.  That  he  was  not 
a  headlong  borrower  from  any  source, 
the  Platonic  included,  is  evinced  by 
the  fact  that  in  the  antithesis  which 
he  depicts  no  place  is  given  to  a  meta- 


142  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

physical  dualism.  He  never  paints 
the  temporal  visible  world  as  intrin- 
sically evil.  The  Christ  whom  he 
acknowledges  truly  came  in  the  flesh, 
and  he  excoriates  the  rejecter  of  this 
historic  fact  as  partaking  of  the  spirit 
of  antichrist. 

The  evidence  for  the  assumption 
that  the  Johannine  theology  affiliates 
with  the  Mystery  Religions,  as  incor- 
porating high  sacramental  conceptions, 
strikes  us  as  quite  inadequate.  As 
respects  baptism  only  a  single  phrase 
can  be  cited  in  its  behalf,  namely,  the 
declaration  on  being  born  of  water 
and  the  Spirit  (iii.  5).  And  here  the 
conjunction  of  water  with  the  Spirit 
seems  to  be  exegetically  designed.  It 
serves  to  explain  to  Nicodemus  the 
character  of  the  new  birth  as  being 
a  cleansing.  In  the  following  verse  the 
agent  of  the  spiritual  birth  is  explicitly 
declared  to  be  the  Spirit;  and  further 
on  a  complete  basis  is  given  for  the 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         143 

inference  that  the  working  of  this 
agent  is  not  tied  to  a  baptismal  occa- 
sion, his  coming  and  going  being  like 
the  unaccountable  movements  of  the 
wind.  Thus  the  passage  on  the  new 
birth,  taken  as  a  whole,  distinctly 
accentuates  the  primacy  of  the  Spirit's 
agency.  Professor  Gardner  keeps 
within  the  limits  of  a  very  decided 
probability  when  he  says:  "The  idea 
that  baptism  by  itself  could  regenerate 
would  be  to  the  writer  as  monstrous 
as  the  notion  of  Nicodemus  that  a 
man  must  enter  again  into  his  mother's 
womb.  Here  as  in  all  parts  of  the 
Gospel,  it  is  the  Spirit  that  profiteth.,,6 
The  connection  does  not  properly 
require  any  reference  to  the  sayings 
of  Christ  addressed  to  the  woman 
of  Samaria  (John  iv.  13,  14).  In  the 
whole  texture  of  those  sayings  there 

8  The  Ephesian  Gospel,  p.  201.  We  have  not  thought  it  worth 
while  to  take  special  notice  of  the  fact  that  the  mention  of  water 
in  John  hi.  5  has  been  judged  by  some  critics  to  have  been  no 
part  of  the  original  text  (Wendt,  The  Gospel  According  to  St. 
John,  p.  120). 


144  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

is  no  suggestion  whatever  of  a  bap- 
tismal washing.  The  stress  is  plainly 
on  the  inward  appropriation  of  grace 
or  truth  which  shall  be  in  the  recipient 
as  "a  well  of  water  springing  up  unto 
eternal  life."  Scarcely  more  in  de- 
mand is  a  reference  to  the  declaration 
that  out  of  the  pierced  side  of  Christ 
came  both  blood  and  water  (xix.  34). 
The  evangelist  who  records  not  so 
much  as  a  single  specific  injunction 
of  baptism,  who  represents  Christ  as 
denying  the  worth  of  any  fleshly  per- 
formance, as  assigning  life-giving  virtue 
to  his  words,  and  as  repeatedly  affirm- 
ing that  in  believing  on  him  eternal 
life  is  to  be  found,  in  all  likelihood  did 
not  construe  the  water  which  he 
associated  with  the  blood  as  symbolical 
of  any  external  rite.  As  in  the  Pauline 
teaching  the  objective  and  the  sub- 
jective phase  of  Christ's  saving  office 
— the  virtue  of  atonement  and  the 
virtue  of  a  transforming  life  potency 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         145 

— are  most  intimately  conjoined,  so  we 
may  believe  that  the  Evangelist  recog- 
nized the  two  phases  as  symbolized 
by  the  outpoured  blood  and  water. 
By  the  one  was  expressed  to  his  mind 
the  efficacy  of  Christ  as  a  propitiation, 
by  the  other  the  power  of  his  spiritual 
presence  to  renovate  and  refresh  the 
inner  life. 

The  basis  for  the  realistic  view  of 
the  eucharist  supposed  to  be  con- 
tained in  the  sixth  chapter  of  the 
Gospel  is  purely  verbal  rather  than 
substantial.  The  chapter  itself  indi- 
cates clearly  enough  that  the  literal 
verbal  sense  must  be  transcended. 
In  the  earlier  portion  the  same  results 
are  attributed  to  faith  which  later 
are  ascribed  to  eating  the  flesh  and 
drinking  the  blood  of  Christ.  Further- 
more, the  eating  and  drinking  are 
spoken  of  as  unconditionally  efficacious, 
nothing  being  said  about  eating  or 
drinking  unworthily.    This  plainly  sug- 


146  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

gests  that  they  do  not  stand  for  mere 
bodily  acts,  but  are  to  be  construed 
as  spiritual  functions,  or  as  figurative 
expressions  for  the  believing  appro- 
priation of  Christ  in  all  the  wealth 
of  his  saving  truth.  Finally,  this 
interpretation  is  formally  enforced  in 
the  unequivocal  proposition,  "It  is 
the  Spirit  that  quickeneth;  the  flesh 
profiteth  nothing:  the  words  that  I 
have  spoken  unto  you,  are  spirit  and 
are  life."  The  necessary  induction 
could  not  be  more  suitably  stated 
than  in  these  words  of  Moffatt:  "It 
is  consonant  with  the  characteristic 
mysticism  of  the  writer's  faith  to  say, 
that  the  bread  and  wine  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  must  have  been  for  him  sym- 
bols, at  best,  of  the  presence  and 
benefits  of  Christ."7  Symbolism  of 
this  kind  was  not  foreign  to  Jewish 
literary  custom.  In  the  semi-canonical 
book  of  Ecclesiasticus,  Wisdom  is  repre- 

7  The  Expositor,  July,  1913. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         147 

sented  as  saying:  "They  that  eat  me 
shall  yet  be  hungry;  and  they  that 
drink  me  shall  yet  be  thirsty"  (xxiv. 
21).  "Metaphors  from  eating  and 
drinking/ '  says  Inge,  "are  common  in 
Talmudic  literature,  and  Philo  speaks 
of  the  Logos  as  the  food  of  the  soul. 
There  was,  therefore,  nothing  strange 
or  unintelligible  in  the  imagery  of  the 
[Johannine]  discourse.  To  eat  the 
Messiah  would  be  readily  understood 
to  mean  to  receive  spiritual  nourish- 
ment from  him,  to  live  by  his  life."8 

It  may  be  conceded,  or  rather, 
affirmed,  that  the  fourth  evangelist 
was  not  indifferent  to  the  sacraments; 
that  he,  indeed,  set  a  distinct  value 
upon  them  as  suitable  means  of  link- 
ing together  in  the  apprehension  of  men 
the  invisible  and  the  visible.  What  is 
to  be  denied  is  the  discovery  of  any 
warrantable  ground  for  the  conclusion 


8  Essays  on  Some  Biblical  Questions  of  the  Day  by  Members 
of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  p.  285. 


148  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

that  he  imputed  to  the  sacraments 
independent  efficacy,  the  virtue  of 
rites  which  work  ex  opere  operato. 

The  similarity  of  the  phraseology  of 
the  Johannine  writings  to  that  of  the 
Hermetic  literature  is  strongly  em- 
phasized by  Reitzenstein,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  admits  a  notable  con- 
trast in  spirit  and  thought.9  Among 
the  terms  common  to  the  two  classes 
of  writings  "light"  and  "life"  are 
conspicuous.10  It  is  noticeable,  how- 
ever, that  the  Johannine  writer  has  a 
pronounced  fondness  for  broad  cate- 
gories and  sharp  antitheses,  an  in- 
clination to  develop  his  whole  subject- 
matter  about  a  few  comprehensive  and 
contrasted  terms,  such  as  light  and 
darkness,  life  and  death,  love  and 
hatred,  sin  and  righteousness,  the 
world  and  the  Christian  brotherhood. 
Now,  in  carrying  out  this  bent  it  is 


9  Poimandres,  pp.  244,  245. 

i°  Ibid.,  Greek  text,  I,  9, 12, 17,  21,  32,  XIV,  9, 18,  19,  pp.  330-347. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         149 

quite  conceivable  that  he  should  have 
fallen  into  his  peculiar  phraseology 
without  recourse  to  exterior  models. 
His  acquaintance  with  the  Hermetic 
literature  remains  problematical,  and 
the  uncertain  date  of  that  literature 
makes  a  still  further  ground  for  in- 
decision. 

In  any  well-rounded  dealing  with 
the  subject  full  account  must  be  made 
of  the  respects  in  which  the  Johannine 
writings  are  strongly  contrasted  with 
the  Mystery  Religions.  It  will  not 
be  necessary,  however,  to  state  them 
here  in  detail,  since  they  are  identical 
with  the  points  of  contrast  already 
specified  between  the  Mystery  Re- 
ligions and  New  Testament  Christian- 
ity as  a  whole.11  In  their  advocacy  of 
an  open  system,  in  their  aloofness  from 
astrology,  sidereal  mysticism,  and  nat- 
uralism in  general,  in  their  insistence 
on    the    ethical    as    opposed    to    the 

"See  Chapter  III. 


150  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

magical,  in  their  avoidance  of  a  pan- 
theistic strain,  and  in  their  emphasis 
on  a  historical  basis,  the  Johannine 
writings  are  in  a  different  sphere  from 
that  of  the  Mystery  Religions.12 

The  author  of  the  book  of  Rev- 
elation may  be  credited  with  using  the 
license  common  to  apocalyptists  to 
range  widely  for  the  symbols  appro- 
priate to  a  thoroughly  picturesque 
style  of  writing.  It  would  cause  no 
surprise  to  find  that  he  had  gone 
into  the  field  of  ethnic  beliefs  and 
mythologies  for  the  groundwork  of 
some  of  his  representations.  Perhaps 
in  what  he  says  about  the  number  of 
the  "beast,"  and  in  his  picture  of  the 
woman  pursued  by  the  dragon,  we 
have  tokens  that  he  derived  sugges- 
tions from  that  quarter.  Facts  of 
this  order,  however,  give  him  no 
special  association  with  the  Mystery 

12  The  points  of  contrast  are  well  put  by  E.  F.  Scott,  American 
Journal  of  Theology,  July,  1916. 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         151 

Religions,  but  only  with  the  general 
store  of  ethnic  mythology.  From  this 
store,  too,  he  took  only  things  inci- 
dental to  his  scene-painting. 

In  the  Old  Testament,  the  Jewish 
Alexandrian  theology,  and  the  Pauline 
writings  entirely  adequate  antecedents 
were  supplied  to  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews.  There  is  exceedingly  slight 
occasion  to  connect  it  with  the  Mystery 
Religions.  The  notion  of  a  plurality 
of  heavens  appears,  indeed  (iv.  14, 
vii.  26) ;  but  a  mere  general  expression 
of  this  notion  was  something  in  which 
any  Jewish  writer  of  the  day  might 
have  indulged,  and  is  no  proof  of 
belief  in  the  elaborate  cosmological 
scheme  of  the  Mystery  cults.  The 
apparent  reference  to  conversion  as  an 
enlightenment  (x.  32)  may  have  a 
certain  affinity  with  the  viewpoint  of 
these  cults,  and  the  supposition  that 
the  choice  of  the  expression  was  in- 


152  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 

fluenced  from  that  quarter  invites 
tolerance;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  no 
one  can  be  assured  that  the  writer 
was  so  destitute  of  capacity  for  analog- 
ical thinking  that  he  did  not  of  his 
own  motion  elect  the  expression.  The 
characterization  of  Christ  as  "medi- 
ator" and  "shepherd"  may  correspond 
to  the  employment  of  titles  in  one  or 
another  of  the  Mysteries.  It  is  to 
be  concluded,  however,  that  too  abun- 
dant sources  of  suggestion  for  these 
titles  were  furnished  to  the  writer 
in  his  Pauline,  Alexandrian,  and  Old 
Testament  antecedents,  to  make  the 
supposition  of  borrowing  from  a  pagan 
source  at  all  imperative.  As  for  the 
special  phrase,  "great  shepherd,"  it  is 
parallel  to  the  expression  "great  high 
priest,"  which  is  twice  used  in  the 
epistle,  and  suits  the  earnest  endeavor 
of  the  author  to  picture  the  pre- 
eminence of  Christ.  Some  other  points 
have  been  alleged  to  give  evidence  of 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT        153 

borrowing  from  the  Mysteries;  but  it 
is  not  worth  while  to  mention  them. 
They  concern  matters  that  were  mere 
commonplaces  in  the  current  Chris- 
tianity. 


154  THE  MYSTERY  RELIGIONS 


CONCLUSION 

It  would  not  be  venturesome  to 
predict  that  the  radical  assumption  as 
to  the  influence  of  the  Mystery  Re- 
ligions on  the  form  and  content  of 
primitive  Christianity  must  recede  from 
the  field.  Like  the  Pan-Babylonian 
theory  of  some  years  ago  it  represents 
an  extreme.  Taken  in  the  concrete 
— the  only  way  in  which  they  could 
be  taken  prior  to  scholarly  induction 
— the  Mystery  Religions,  as  they  ex- 
isted in  the  first  century,  were  in  no 
wise  adapted  to  appeal  to  Christian 
leaders.  Their  opportunity  to  react 
upon  Christian  thought  and  feeling, 
especially  in  the  direction  of  cere- 
monial magic,  came  later,  when  great 
masses  which  had  been  leavened  by 
them  poured  into  the  church.  Even 
then  the  entire  adverse  result  was  not 


AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT         155 

due  to  them.  Much  of  it  is  to  be 
attributed  to  the  natural  tendency  of 
any  system,  which  seeks  control  over 
men,  to  gravitate  into  mechanism  and 
pretense  when  not  safeguarded  by 
most  potent  and  wholesome  influences. 


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